Chromazone invitation, 1983
The documentation of my artwork below is presented in approximate chronological order, beginning with my move from Winnipeg to Toronto in 1982. In Winnipeg, I worked for the design department of the CBC with a variety of assignments that included image content for daily news programs. The latter experience practically solidified my skepticism towards documentary representation, a critical position I had already acquired theoretically through the study and appreciation of the theatre of Bertolt Brecht, and the cinema of Jean Luc Godard. This insight required a reversal of my prior aversion to any form of representational subject matter, and while I nevertheless continued to sidestep the didactic authority of traditional narrative structure, I freely adopted semiotic language structures, especially compatible with collage and montage, to explore the subject of representation itself. Moreover, the materiality of paint and the articulating brushwork that necessarily accompanies it also seems to me to facilitate a form of “critical distancing” that is compatible with a critique of representation.
Der Weltglaubenstraum | installation view, Chromazone
From - The Distant World, 1983
The Distant World | 1984 | installation view, CAG, Vancouver
T.E. Afterlife | 1984 | oil on canvas, 159 cm x 113 cm
Milieu actor | 1983 | oil on Gatorboard, 63.5 x 92.7 cm
Milieu money | 1983 | oil on Gatorboard, 92.7 x 160 cm
From - Genre | 2004 | oil on canvas, 61 x 89 cm
Genre | 2004 | installation view, YYZ Artists’ Outlet
Die Laughing Sapling #6 | 1985 | oil on canvas, 200 x 74.9 cm
Axis Mundi Lure | 1986 | oil on canvas, 229 x 152.5 cm
We Know So Much About These Things | 1986 | oil on canvas, 124 x 154 cm
Certain Terms | 1984 | ink brush on text & book paper, 20 x 25.5 cm
Certain Terms | 1984 | ink brush on text & book paper, 20 x 25.5 cm
Certain Terms | 1984 | 164 drawings total in 14 framed panels
Make Dream Poster | 1987 | ink brush and print on paper, 70 x 50cm
Free Make Poster | 1987 | ink brush and print on paper, 70 x 50cm
Posters | 1987 | 32 drawings in 8 framed double-hung sets of 4
Bad Faith | 1987 | installation view, 49th Parallel, New York
Bad Faith Yellow | 1987 | oil on board, 218 x 317.5 cm
A uniquely perspicacious reading of my artwork from this period by William Wood is available here:
http://ccca.concordia.ca/c/writing/w/wood/wood013t.html
The Psychopathology of Everyday Life | 1987 | oil on canvas, 84 x 109 cm
The Psychopathology of Everyday Life Motif | 1987 | oil on canvas, 84 x 109 cm
The Psychopathology of Everyday Life | 1987 | oil on canvas, 84 x 109 cm
Literatus with Concealed Face | 1989 | oil on canvas, 201 x 97 cm
Literatus | 1989 | installation views, National Gallery of Canada
Literatus with Flames | 1989 | oil on canvas, 201 x 267 cm
Literatus with Vessel | 1989 | oil on canvas, 201 x 267 cm
As it is | 1991 | oil on canvas, 38 x 51 cm
