, playing Eliza Doolittle in her black-and-white Ascot finery. Tod, always capable of simultaneous delight and critique, spins her like a child spins a kaleidoscope, painting the figure four times so that the four versions of her huge, shell-shaped hat meet in the middle to produce a pair of bivalves.
Stillness and movement is explored further in an installation Tod had created featuring portraits of the Toronto Raptors basketball team. A very recent convert to the church of basketball, the artist has become fascinated by the mathematical aspects of the game, the stats and the business, and has painted highly realistic portraits of the team. The recently traded Jonas Valanciunas, for example, is staring out into Richmond Street from the gallery’s front windows.
For the current lineup, Tod has taken a not-entirely-scientific approach to scale, modifying the size of each player’s portrait in relationship to his height. So, the newly arrived Marc Gasol, the tallest player, is painted at larger-than-life size and Fred Vanvleet, the shortest , is painted slightly smaller than life-size.