DAN CLIMAN

THE GIVE AND THE TAKE

September 20 - October 11, 2025

1520 Queen Street West Toronto, M6R 1A4

General Hardware is thrilled to present Dan Climan's solo exhibition. 

The give and the take brings together six new paintings and ten studies that trace the movement of images from references into fully realized works. The studies - drawn from film stills, found photographs, and social media fragments - reveal the artist’s root process, pared down in blue monochrome. They act as a reminder that each painting begins with an act of recognition before it transforms into something else.

The paintings return to motifs Climan has visited over the years. Cars, dogs, and anonymous figures are now crystallized into its definitive form. Earlier works invited viewers to draw their own narratives. This body of work asserts itself more directly: this is what it is. The subjects, colours, and compositions are honed to a point where nothing is left unresolved.

At the heart of the exhibition is the cycle named in its title. Images are taken - from the world, from memory, from the endless visual scroll - and given back, altered through time, effort, and the artist’s hand. In turn, viewers take these images once more, carrying them into their own lives, reposting, remembering, reframing. The works acknowledge this visual chain we all participate in, while slowing it down into moments of clarity.

Together, the studies and paintings propose a rhythm of repetition and return. They reflect an artist accepting his own language, circling back on familiarity, not as unfinished business but as a kind of resolution, a period placed at the end of a sentence he has been writing for years.

Dan Climan (b. 1987, Montréal) received his BFA from the Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver, Canada. He currently lives and works in Montréal, Canada.