Duncan Regehr: Anonymous
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Petley Jones Gallery 2245 Granville Street, Vancouver, British Columbia V6H 3G1
Duncan Regehr, "Lunaris - Lost Man Series," 2019
oil and mixed media, 24" x 30"
Duncan Regehr - The Lost Man Series & The Forgotten Woman Series
The Lost Man is a series of paintings consisting of individual pictorial narratives and themes. Each piece portrays a solitary male figure who occupies space within the environment yet appears to exist separate from its reality. Colours and abstractions of his essence prevail, not lost or faded but vibrant within his form. Background environments, rendered in greyish tones, appear remote and out of focus.
The Lost Man has not lost himself; rather it is society that has lost the man.
I began work on The Lost Man in the spring of 2019. The overall concept for the series arose from the observation that men have been experiencing alienation, rejection of male values and a gradual erosion of essential masculinity for some time.
As work progressed, my understanding of the series extended to include the view that people everywhere are experiencing severance from reality. We embrace the superficial isolate through texting and social media and disconnect through fake news and reality TV. The more we empower artificial intelligence, “virtual” reality and automation the more we lose touch with our selves, each other, our environment and Nature. DR
Ideas for The Forgotten Woman began germinating during development of The LostMan. Paintings started to arrive late in 2019, just prior to the Pandemic.
Women need to remember their own forgotten woman – Anne Graves.
Many pass through the world having hidden, quelled, or sacrificed essential aspects of self, and by choice or by force of circumstance adopt alternative ways of being. Some leave behind the spirit they knew well in childhood. Some retain a secret self. Others remain invisible to themselves throughout life. Unacknowledged and unobserved by the world, they are forgotten…anonymous.
Contrasting colour schemes are integral to the theme of “The Forgotten Woman”. Female figures appear separated from their environments, yet suspended within them. Their colorful essence contained in silhouette. Remote, grisaille-like backgrounds magnify their vibrancy. As with “The Lost Man”, the vivid figures are the polar opposites of their surroundings.
With the emergence of Covid-19 both series seem a timely creation; perhaps a harbinger of what was to come. Now, more than ever, people are experiencing social distancing, isolation, separation from society and from everything that we once knew as “normal”.
Courage, compassion, perseverance and hope carry the potential to ease our confinements and addictions; to help us find novel ways of re-engaging our human calling as social beings, to find our way as creators, explorers and survivors.