SERIES M: CRAZED, 2011     

This series of work flows out of an interest in the study of ordinary things (Ryhparography) and an ongoing engagement with painting as a form of   secondary documentation.   Although the paintings and companion works in this series record with fidelity, the graphic characteristics of the crazed surface found on select ceramic objects, they also refer to aspects of analysis and investigation. To a lesser degree, Crazed charts the characteristics of geography and region linked to the manufacture of specific ceramic production.

Formal discipline and the narrowing of aesthetic and conceptual concerns in this body of work argues   for modes of academic abstraction. While at the same time, the multi panel arrangements tend to subvert the primary objectives of conventional pictorial unity. This kind of contrived ambiguity has led me to other propositions for this series. The orbital/ perimeter panels in this instance propose the notion of marginalia or external reference notations. For example, the treasured textbook bristling with inscribed page marker post-it tags comes to mind. An internal / external dialogue is undertaken in which commentary and comparison is put forward in painterly terms or with minimal diagrammatic short hand. Allusion to clay body and glazing are part of a method of working and serve to heighten visual experience. Finally, should any trace of my hand or resonance of manufacture become apparent, it should be taken as proof of the pleasure in making, a sometimes less quantifiable condition of art activity.  

STUDIES IN CITIZENSHIP

The book paintings and their companion works in this exhibition extend my on going interest in regional social history. Regarded thematically, they propose a pattern for citizenship or more precisely, citizens and the settlement of rural Canada. The information contained in the books selected for this exhibition, is in many ways obsolete or arcane. Yet the book titles act as signs for the rigor of self-reliance and stand as a self conscious and distilled reminder of the extent to which the twin virtues of unwavering pragmatism and conformity were the dominant expressions of settlement.   

The depiction of books within the genre of still life painting, suggested the presence of the prime object: an object that spans time and generations, an object whose utility and function need not be reinvented each time it is required. Correspondingly, each book in this exhibition is archived in a painter's space, an austere geometric composition ultimately defined by a material edge that is both representational and physical. They stand in stark contrast to the archetypal European model (vanitas), portraying books artfully arranged in a domestic environment. Studies in Citizenship in this formalized configuration exists for cautious scrutiny, as an observed, workmanlike, measured and calibrated, recording of familiar forms.

The books selected for models in this exhibit, have been purchased at a local flea market during the past 5 years. They are Canadian publications (or have a Canadian Publishing branch). I would like to acknowledge the un credited designers of these volumes whose work I have replicated, and to the authors, my thanks as well.