Patrick Dunford’s Difficult Terrain

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Patrick Dunford, “The Impossible Railroad Near Ocotillo,” 2016

oil on canvas, 24” x 30”

Patrick Dunford is interested in hard places. His show, Difficult Terrain, at Calgary's Jarvis Hall Gallery until April 21, is based on two of them – the clear-cut forests of British Columbia, and the desert near his home in San Diego, where he often hikes along the Impossible Railroad in the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.

Along with their harsh physical environment, both are sites of exhausting labour, whether planting trees or building railways. In California, it took workers a decade to lay the line and various sections have burned, caved in or washed out since it opened in 1932.

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Patrick Dunford, “Strangers in Carrizo Gorge,” 2018

oil on canvas, 48” x 36”

Dunford is also curious about landscapes in flux and the challenges – and hubris – of trying to shape them to meet human needs. He sees parallels between his themes and his artistic process, which involves working in and out of multiple layers. “I scrape away at the paint, keep going, finding an image through a long process,” he says.

The Impossible Railroad Near Ocotillo shows an impasto expanse of sandy paint broken by occasional cacti and rocks, sometimes topped by a basking lizard. Small figures clad in white shirts lean into their work, clearing debris along the line after a windstorm. The painting has a cartoon-like quality, reflecting Dunford’s interest in artists like Philip Guston, and evokes a sense of arduous labour primarily through gesture.

“These gangs of people would have to go back out and clear the railroad off to get it operational again,” says Dunford, who used historical photos as references. “They were always uniformly wearing these white shirts and the same pants. They even had to live out in the desert in these little stone huts. It’s incredibly difficult work.”

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Patrick Dunford, “End of Day Four,” 2017

oil on canvas, 32” x 22”

Dunford lives in California with his wife, who is working on a doctorate in art history at the University of California San Diego. He spent four summers as a tree planter in British Columbia after earning his Master’s degree in fine arts at Montreal's Concordia University in 2012. But he developed tendinitis and now pays his bills with a less taxing job at an art supplies store.

His paintings recall the arduous labour of tree planting, but also the camaraderie. End of Day Four shows planters trudging back to camp after a long shift. “Everyone is along a road, working their own particular piece,” he says. “And then you meet back up with everybody at the end. And you go over your day, you talk about your day. No matter how hard the day was, when you all get back together, you always feel good.” ■

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Patrick Dunford, “Riding Mountain,” 2015

oil on canvas, 34” x 28”

Difficult Terrain is on view at Calgary's Jarvis Hall Gallery until April 21, 2018.