When Emilia Ianeva founded Berenson Fine Art in Toronto in 2011 it was clear that her stable of contemporary artists would reflect a wide range of nationalities working in an equally wide range of media.

She had earned her Master’s degree in Philosophy in Europe, and published three books there on the subject. She then went on to earn her Master’s degree in Art History. From 2002–05 she served as the Associate Director of the Pasquale Iannetti Gallery in San Francisco where she curated special exhibitions by 20th-century masters, including Bacon, Pissarro, Zuniga. After falling in love with the gallery’s artists — Marco Sassone — the couple married and moved to Toronto. Emilia immediately became involved in the city’s arts scene and wrote a monthly article titled “Art and Other Verbs” for the Distillery District Magazine. She opened the gallery in 2011 and has built a strong reputation ever since. The current exhibition “Urban Scapes” shows why Sassone is the gallery’s pillar.

Marco Sassone’s new paintings are compelling. Like his earlier paintings, these are characterized by powerfully converging lines that entice the viewer’s eye into their highly textured surfaces. They revisit the artist’s familiar compositions that frame a distant skyscraper in New York or the vista of a street perspective in downtown Toronto. Also included in the exhibition are intimate paintings that evoke the soul of Venice — a city that Sassone has long celebrated as his spiritual home. His images distill the essence of that vital inner life in the reflective waters of its canals, where the city itself appears to drift in ever-shifting surfaces, and where the facades of houses and palazzi are blended and consumed.

On view through December 5, 2019