CURTIS CUTSHAW: "Breathing Light," May 5 - June 4, 2005, Skew Gallery, Calgary

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CURTIS CUTSHAW

Breathing Light, May 5 - June 4, 2005

Skew Gallery, Calgary

By Jill Sawyer

Talking with painter Curtis Cutshaw about his upcoming show, Bart Habermiller, co-owner of Calgary’s Skew Gallery, suggested trying something new. Instead of hanging the drawings and studies that had informed Cutshaw’s recent work, the gallery would construct a Plexiglas case to display them in a stack. There are more than 10,000 drawings. If Cutshaw is prolific today (he has produced more than 130 paintings since last August, and has about 55 works in the Skew show, not counting the drawings), it’s an about-face from the meticulous glazing and layering that marked his work just a few years ago, when he would spend up to three years on each painting. Today, his rule is that he has to finish a painting in one trip to the studio. The result is a series of small colour-gradated canvases shot through with light and reflection. It’s the outcome of an iron discipline that puts him in the studio every single day. Cutshaw says he’d like viewers to take a simple message away from his show: “I hope people will see someone who loves to paint. I hope they get excited by that.”

Represented by: Skew Gallery, Calgary; Jennifer Kostuik Gallery, Vancouver.