Artist in Williamsburg

I just got back from a visit to New York.  As well as haunting the museums and galleries, I had the treat of an invitation to visit Matthew Blackwell in his studio in Brooklyn.  Our friends Michael Matthews and Jane Crow were going to visit him and asked us to come along.

At the top of five steep sets of stairs and through a maze of twisting hallways, we found him busy making a pot of coffee for us.  The living quarters are what you might call cozy, or colourful, or claustrophobic but there is a great view out the window and he seems to have no fear of fire traps.

Here are a few of his paintings:

After looking at his canvases, you might wonder what kind of a crazy person created them.  However  he is a very charming, relaxed and friendly character.  He shows at Edward Thorp Gallery in manhattan.

Paintings Placed at U.B.C. Pharmaceutical Building

Three of my paintings have been placed in the  Pharmaceutical Sciences building at the University of British Columbia.  The very clean and uncluttered design of the interior of this new building is a good fit for the paintings.

The paintings seemed large in my studio, but the grandness of the scale of these spaces rather dwarfs them.  I am really happy to have them in such a compatible setting.

Which is Larger?

It is always interesting how what you paint on a canvas can make it look bigger or smaller.  I haven't quite figured it out, but sometimes a painting with lots of detail can look larger than it really is; and vice versa, a large painting with little detail looks smaller, especially in reproduction.

I was recently putting an undercoating on a canvas, and left it sitting side by side with an unpainted  canvas of exactly the same size.  Here they are:

Do they look the same size, or does one look larger than the other?

Colour!

Paul Klee is an artist whose work has always captivated me.  Recently reading a book on him, "Paul Klee Painting Music"by Hajo Duchting, I noticed this quote about colour:

"Colour was for Klee the 'imponderable' and thus individual element in the picture.  .....    As Klee once commented:  'Colour has always had something secretive about it that is difficult to grasp.  This mysterious quality penetrates the mind.  The colours are the most irrational elements in painting.  They possess something suggestive, a suggestive power."

Paul Klee, 'Fire in the Evening", l929, oil on cardboard.

Online Catalogue/Essay About The Retrospective "Painting This Place"

                                           1983         "Nocturne"      30x36"            acrylic



The Evergreen Centre has produced an online catalogue for my recent exhibition, with an essay by Gregory Elgstrand.  It is viewable at this link:  PAINTING THIS PLACE .  Please click on  Exhibition Catalogue.
   

"Painting This Place" Installation Shots

Here are instillation photos of the exhibition at the Art Gallery at Evergreen, Coquitlam:

Slide Show of Thirty Years of Painting

When researching a selection of paintings for my retrospective at The Evergreen Centre in Coquitlam (opening March 6, 2014 until April 17, 2014), it was difficult to choose which paintings would represent the course of my work.  We selected 16 large canvases which was about right for the exhibition space.  To provide a wider overview,  I put together a slide show with some insight into the fact that you never escape yourself.  The first slide is from 1977 and the last one is from 2013.  Here is the link:  "Painting This Place"

Retrospective Exhibition at Evergreen Cultural Centre in Coquitlam

March 6 is the opening date for an exhibition of my paintings at the Evergreen Centre in Coquitlam, B. C.  The curator and I went through three decades of my work to select the representative canvases, 16 pieces altogether, just barely skimming the surface of the many directions I have pursued.  It has been quite interesting to look back and one of the things I noticed is that I have ended up not far from where I started.  The paintings are on my website (www.patservice.com) and here is the show announcement:

Peter Doig in Montreal

There is a wonderful exhibition of paintings by Peter Doig, just opened at the Musee de beaux-arts de Montreal.  

Peter Doig: No Foreign Lands

It is funny that if I had painted these paintings I would think, oh they are not good enough, I had better work on them to make them better.  That is how much I know; the Art World has embraced them.  What I do like is that they are paintings, an exuberant abundance of paint and colour on canvas.

In an interview in Canadian Art,  The Closer You Get: An Interview with Peter Doig   Doig says some interesting things, many of which I agree with.  For example, they ask him what he is learning from his paintings:

PD: I’m questioning where I am in the world, where I live in the world, thinking about other people, thinking about their situations. I think what I am doing is important—not because painting is important. As an activity, it’s important to actually do something. I feel guilty if I’m not painting. Once you succumb to painting, you have to carry on with it. Gerhard Richter said something very interesting to me—I’m not a huge fan of Gerhard Richter’s work, but he said, if you think about it too much, you stop doing it. That’s a great way of thinking about painting. You have to put your blinkers on, and stop thinking."