Tiko Kerr, “A Public Burning,” 2020
acrylic and oil pastel on acrylic, 17” x 17”
Our world has become one framed by plexiglass. Transparent walls shield us from COVID-19 as we are served at shops and eat at restaurants. Tiko Kerr, a distinguished Vancouver artist, took advantage of lockdown time, reflecting on pandemic experiences as he reinvented his art practice, layering colour on plexiglass as a metaphor for the transparent sharing of information.
He starts by dabbing coloured marks onto a clear plate, which he then turns so the paint is on the far side from the viewer. These first gestures, often the most instinctive and liberated, but cached behind two subsequent layers of painted plexiglass, are given priority here. They welcome us into the deeper strata. Layering the sheets, slightly gapped with breathing space, allows the colours to float.
Tiko Kerr, “The End of the Beginning,” 2020
acrylic on acrylic, 17” x 17”
Magenta, lavender and a pale but perky bluish green are the reigning hues. They exude calm energy without being maudlin. At the Mónica Reyes Gallery, where the paintings are on view until Feb. 13, the far wall is painted in mulberry, which makes all the colours, except the matching colour within the painting, swim forward like underwater effervescence.
Tiko Kerr, “Grey Area,” 2020
acrylic on acrylic, 31” x 31”
The show includes a couple of black-and-white pieces, which have the energetic quality of a drawing, but also invoke nostalgia for black-and-white television. After all, Kerr’s reference to transparency had me thinking about the news, and the brushstrokes of the chromatic works are much like pixels. With titles like The End of the Beginning and Evidence of Inclusion, he refers to feelings of isolation and despair, as well as our shared astonishment and loneliness. But his saccharine colours lift us.
Tiko Kerr, “Heirs of the Night ,” 2020
acrylic and collage on acrylic, 7” x 17”
Three small panorama-format pieces stacked vertically are black-and-white collages. Paper cut-outs play with negative space, as if they are dancing toward each other but never touching. The wide format alludes to Picasso’s Guernica, but without the angst of wartime horrors.
Kerr has had a long career in Vancouver as a painter and muralist and is known for his vivid landscapes and cityscapes. In the last few years, he has eschewed imagery, relying on colour, gesture and pattern in his paintings and collages.
Rather than leaning on his success, he follows his curiosity. For a long time, he was a painter for the people. His works were accessible, and his Vancouver audience could recognize their locations, whether in Stanley Park or Chinatown. On a trajectory towards abstraction, his compositions became stylized and then distilled, eventually emerging as fully formed abstractions.
Tiko Kerr, “The Foreseeable Present,” 2020
acrylic on acrylic, 17” x 17”
While these latest works might make you think of organisms seen under a microscope, or pixels that never unite into a cohesive image, they are formed of paint. They tell us about colour and how we see through the lens of our era. When better than this time of collective misery to search for the poetic in painting?
The exhibition’s title, Plexus, refers to an intricate network within a structure and alludes to the delicate structure of society as we work together to stay apart. Kerr’s work speaks to these collective experiences without spelling them out. ■
Tiko Kerr: Plexus at the Mónica Reyes Gallery in Vancouver from Jan. 7 to Feb. 13, 2021.
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