RETURN OF THE FIGURE
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Return of the Figure
"Completeness"
Jia Lu, "Completeness," giclée.
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Return of the Figure
"Hands Study"
Carl White, "Hands Study."
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Return of the Figure
"Head of a Man"
Carl White, "Head of a Man."
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Return of the Figure
"One-Way Passage"
Bev Tosh, "One-Way Passage," oil and silver leaf on canvas.
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Return of the Figure
"Completeness"
Jia Lu, "Completeness," giclée.
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Return of the Figure
"Sacred Stream series"
Liz Ingram, "Sacred Stream series."
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Return of the Figure
"Sacred Stream series"
Liz Ingram, "Sacred Stream series."
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Return of the Figure
"Sacred Stream series"
Liz Ingram, "Sacred Stream series."
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Return of the Figure
"Sacred Stream series"
Liz Ingram, "Sacred Stream series."
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Return of the Figure
"Sacred Stream series"
Liz Ingram, "Sacred Stream series."
RETURN OF THE FIGURE
By Patricia Robertson
The figure is in the foreground of the art world again— from an increase in commissioned portraits to cheeky young painters like New York’s Cecily Brown whose randy rabbit images were featured in the June issue of Artnews. The return of the figure seems inevitable as artists and collectors shift from the status quo. What was once so radical, abstract art, has become the standard, commonplace.
Alberta artists are embracing the figure with great enthusiasm —some of them have never left the representational camp and are pleased to see a renewed interest in their work. I spoke to four of them about their recent projects, their love of the figure, and the reason behind their choice of subject matter.
Calgary artist Bev Tosh greets me with the unabashed enthusiasm of someone who has been painting alone all week. We stand for hours in front of her latest work and talk animatedly about art, obsession and history. “You studied in a period when representational art was in decline…why did you choose the figure?” I venture. “I didn’t choose the figure. It chose me and it chose me early. It is how I feel. I have an interest in the body. That is the attraction most art has for me…the figurative. The figure is the body. It is me,” says Tosh who is represented in Calgary by Masters Gallery.
Bev Tosh’s Ramsey studio is filled with lush oversized portraits of WWII war brides sporting official headgear; the most striking is based on a photo of her mother. Tosh’s mom married a New Zealand pilot and left Saskatchewan to start a family with him. When the marriage ended her mother and her two daughters returned to Canada. When her mother turned 80, Tosh began talking to her about life as a war bride. The conversation led her to other Canadian war brides—the subject has captivated the painter for the last two years.
Tosh’s immersion is complete and has even invaded her night table. Lately her reading includes Marge Piercy’s classic WWII novel Gone to Soldiers about women’s experiences of the war. “I have also been researching dress patterns from the war time. The women handcrafted wedding gowns from parachute silk as material was scarce due to war rationing. I found one from 1945 in the Aerospace Museum.”
Like Tosh, Edmonton printmaker Liz Ingram has been working with the figure since her student days. “I did a lot of life drawing while at York doing my BFA. I moved west to the University of Alberta to take my Master degree and I never left. When I was a student, colour field painting was important. There was no ‘content’ in your work, no figure. Printmaking permitted me to work with recognizable imagery, to do figurative work. I was not brave enough to go against the grain in painting.”
The decision to go with her heart and the figure has proven out. Ingram’s work is critically acclaimed. Her prints have been exhibited in Prague, Versailles, London, Japan, Norway, Brazil and Taiwan. Her latest solo show, Fragile Source, was exhibited at the Edmonton Art Gallery in 2001. Fragile Source features figures immersed in water. “It has to do with sensuality, connection. There is a paradox between the solidity of materials and the transience of life.”
Los Angeles-based artist Jia Lu is in her studio painting when I call. The former Calgarian is preparing for a number of upcoming shows (October 28 at Calgary’s Stephen Lowe Art Gallery) and trying to keep pace with the increased demand for her work.
The soft-spoken woman is quietly self-assured. “I am not afraid to paint beautiful paintings with luxurious materials,” says Lu. As a figurative artist who works with the nude, she also has a political and spiritual intent to her work: “Male artists paint women as things, as objects. They don’t know women. They are not women. We are spiritual, powerful and sensitive. I see my subjects as spiritual beings, not just sexual. I wanted to make them beautiful inside and out.”
Lu has seen some personal struggles over the last few years and is now happily married. Her current happy state of mind is reflected in the joyful, radiant, and richly textured portraits of women she creates. She is quick to reassure me that she is not a ‘nude artist’. “No. No. No. I am painting figures. They are spiritual beings. They are beautiful.”
I met Carl White on a Saturday morning at his favourite people-watching spot, Café Beano in Calgary. We talked about his upcoming show at Harrison Galleries (September 19 – October 20), his recent trip to LA, and his passion for the figure. White had just returned from LA where he was working on a commission for the Hyatt Regency Hotel. He is happy to be back and anxious to get moving on his new works for September’s Half-illuminated in the light of our entry. half in the shadow of what is to come.
“I have a self-confessed aesthetic passion for the figure,” explains White. “I grapple with the question: How do I communicate? What is the best vehicle? What transcends language, geography, and gender? A fist is a fist. A caress is a caress. The figure became an obvious vehicle for the themes I want to examine.”
“My upcoming show looks at truth, the truth in all of our lives. I am interested in that instant, the meditative state, the pause between breaths when you are freed from the flesh for a split second. You can change at that instant. When I look at people, I can see what they desire in their faces, or what is hidden behind the veil. As an artist, I view the world from that pause place, where everything exists and we are aware of it,” says White.
“All art is about seeing. The flesh is like a map, a history, our scars, the record of who we are. When I look at the figure I see that we are all the same, all grappling with the same human struggles. It is also really about beauty. Sometimes, I just look at a clavicle and think it is beautiful.”
“I live in company with a body, a silent companion, exacting and eternal.”
——French painter Eugene Delacroix