A new exhibition, Maximum Sun, opens at the Minarovich Gallery in the Elora Centre for the Arts from Jan. 24 to March 17.
Artist David Blatherwick, who is known for his smart, looping abstractions, has sourced his inspiration for the new show from the sun. The exhibition acknowledges the sun as the source of both vision and heat.
It marks a new direction in the artist’s work, exploring a more perceptual basis for his abstract paintings.
These works attest to a powerful lineage of abstract painting in Canada, from Montreal’s Les Plasticiens who purged narrative and painterly gesture to reveal colour as a potent force in its own right. This work rebels against that pedigree, however, heading out into the bush like a modernist Tom Thomson.
Blatherwick lives in Elora and teaches at the University of Waterloo. His work has exhibited at the Musée des Beaux Arts du Québec, Stock 20 in Tai Chung, Taiwan, La Cité Internationale in Paris, The Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh, Art Gallery of Windsor, the Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa, and is represented by Paul Kuhn Gallery in Calgary and Art Mur in Montreal where he has shown on numerous occasions.
His work has also been included in many group exhibitions of which the 2009 KWAG Biennale, the 2002 Montreal Biennale, “Video Naive” at Musée des Beaux Arts de Nantes, Metamorphose et Clônage at the Musée D’art Contemporain de Montréal, “The Hand” at the Power Plant in Toronto and “Partly Human” at El Museo de Arte Moderno de Guadalajara are a few.
Maximum Sun will be on exhibit in the Minarovich Gallery at the Elora Centre for the Arts, located at 75 Melville Street, from Jan. 24 to March 17. An opening reception will be held Jan. 24 at 7:30pm.
For more information, visit www.eloracentreforthearts.ca.
