The Artist Project Toronto returned to the historic Liberty Grand for its second annual exhibition and sale of contemporary fine art featuring 150 juried, independent artists.

From March 5th to 8th, 2009 artists from across North America showcased their original artwork with the chance to come face-to-face with enthusiasts, curators and collectors outside of the typical gallery scene.

Nurturing the talent of emerging artists, The Artist Project Toronto also hosted the Untapped exhibition with over 100 students, recent grads and up-and-coming young artists invited to display and sell their work at the show.

Extracting the pretenses out of the exhibition, buying and selling of art, the "indie" art fair is one of the most effective ways to grow a healthy arts culture in our city. And though deflated stock certificates hanging on your wall does evoke an emotional response, at least art holds it's value in a bum economy.

The Chocolate Competition, a continuation of last year's Orange Competition, gave exhibitors a soapbox for their reaction to chocolate. Toronto pop artist, Greg Shegler took home first place with Beverly Owens and Giampietro Filippetti picking up second and third, respectively. Israel native, Nava Waxman was the People's Choice winner, which to me carries much more gusto than it's proletariat title connotes.

And finally, delegates were encouraged to conduct their postmortems over drinks and dinner at the

Drake Hotel, host of the official after party.

Images by Arash Moallemi.