Small Fugatives                     

At Winchester Galleries on Broad Street

Opening: Saturday, May 9, 2009 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm

Exhibition continues until May 30, 2007

Toronto artist Ric Evans is widely known as one of the best colourists Canada has produced.  He is also acclaimed for geometric composition.
Vintage Evans: The stripes, grids, mantles, verticals and horizontals provide balance, predictability, anchor the figuration.  Curved lines evocative of Stuart Davis and Cy Twombly, diagonals reminiscent of Rodchenko and Robert Mangold, create movement.  Helmut Federle is called to mind for geometric blocks and clarity.  Rectangles are cut in two by other rectangles or are obscured by them.  Pure (nameable) colour is juxtaposed with off-key (unnameable) colour.

Evans’s new work employs one of his primary motifs, namely blocks of colour.  As rectangles they are formal but – in this new work – at least some of them are placed seemingly randomly and in a crowded frame of reference, a sense arising of the unformed, the raw conditions of creative process. The effect is part of a dynamic contrast in view of the strong enfolding organization and powerful focal points. 

Ric Evans has an interest - for instance - in Brice Marden and Terry Winters albeit those two artists, in contrast with Evans, feature drawing as a key métier. Evans’s work has more affinity with Imi Knoeble, Richard Tuttle and Olivier Mosset for their emphasis on paint and varied material.

Catch this special show (at 1010 Broad Street) if you can.