Patricia Beech and Jean David | Here & There

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Left: Patricial Beech, "Quails in the Yard," 2021 (detail). Right: Jean David, "Swan in the Lake," 2023 (detail)

Here & There presents the work of two self-taught artists working in the realm of imaginary landscapes and idealized memories, reminiscent of Henri Rousseau and other so-called “naïve artists” of the early 20th-century. Patricia Beech paints a vast Canadian frontier that is removed from the present, with structures and characters who hold a profound historicity. Those figures are, in turn, overpowered by momentary and potent phenomena–a sunset, a flood, a rainbow. Jean David’s environments are, in contrast, decidedly not of the Canadian Prairies. His shores and waters are vibrant blue and his valleys and hills are abundantly floral. They are exaggerations that adorn a dream, and speak to a connection with something divine. Like nostalgia itself, Here & There fluctuates between the grief of physical distance and the ecstasy of mystic presence.