Gordon Smith: Through the Trees

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Gordon Smith, "Snow #2," 2018

acrylic on canvas, 46" x 47 3/4"

Opening Reception: Saturday, September 8, 2-4pm

Equinox Gallery is pleased to present Gordon Smith: Through the Trees - an exhibition of new paintings and collaged works on canvas. This exhibition takes Gordon Smith’s imaginative and complex perspective of the forest as both subject and object where the landscape can be pulled apart and reconstructed as an idea. For 24 consecutive years, the opening of Gordon Smith’s show in September has come to denote the beginning of the cultural season in Vancouver, and this exhibition reflects Smith’s continued commitment to his artistic practice.

A view of the trees is principal to these works and it is masterfully revealed in three manners. Line and colour initially come together in Smith’s deft and unmistakable way, bringing a distinctly “Smithian” perspective of the tangled landscape. Progressing through this, Smith obfuscates our view of the trees behind a veil of white, using a gestural application of paint to render the subject almost indiscernible. These works teeter on the edge of total abstraction but don’t give in completely, leaving some space to see the trees. Smith then comes back to a clear view of the forest by using digital photographs of his own landscape paintings, tearing them up and reassembling them in layers on canvas. The results are striking as these works carry the precision of photographs but are as unbound in their energy as his most vigorous paintings. Together, these three views through the trees exemplify Gordon Smith’s extensive career which has pioneered a path through representation and abstraction and back again.