Free Fall, the Paintings of Margaret Glew

7/29/2019 Free Fall, the Paintings of Margaret Glew

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If Margaret Glews intention is to produce a bodyof purely abstract work, then she pulls it off just.While pushing her own creative boundaries farbeyond previous limits, she cannot abandon themcompletely. For this artist nature remains a touch-stone, a thread that weaves its way through eachand every one of these paintings.

But this is jumping the gun. No discussion aboutGlews current work can ignore rst impressions andthese impressions are overwhelmingly informed byher use of colour. In paintings such as No Way Home(p.5), Fire and Rain (p.2) and Wind over Water(p.9),the palette is anything but subtle and is dominated

by blocks of pure orange and blue. This orangereappears many times in successive works includingToo Close to the Ground (p.10) and Incandescent(p.6), where its authority is mediated most usually bywhite or pink. Black is a constant too, sometimesappearing in a major role as inAny Way you Want(p.6), and Long Nights (p.1) to provide the solidground, the building block or, more mysteriously inDropping Slow (p.11), as the endless void from which

all things emerge or into which all things disappear.Even as a bit player in Too Close to the Ground andIncandescent, its role is one of signier and its sparesymbolism provides a familiar almost comfortingaspect to the work.

However, the inspiration and the driving force behindthese paintings comes as a result of Glews astuteobservations as well as her subliminal interaction with

the natural world. Encountering landscape anddistilling it to an almost pure form of colour relation-ships, the artist nevertheless retains linkages thatground the work in the here and now. Her referencepoints are the sounds and symbols of weather andweather patterns and their effect on our environ-ment. Rendered simply as cloud forms, arrows, trees

and the sun and the rain, these elements remain, invarying degrees, as real and as close to us as theyhave been even from the early years of our lives.

This link to the natural world has always informedmuch of our personal geography and so the threatto its ongoing existence can hardly be ignored by anartist who has spent much of her considerable prac-tice observing and interpreting the landscape.

The complexity of this relationship is particularlyapparent in Without a Net (p.1) and several of theuntitled paintings from 2010. Dense and layered,the subject of these works appears as almost impen-

etrable. Lines, grids and reworked areas generatea rather less benevolent feeling that reminds us thatlandscape may be imagined and interpreted innumerous ways.

Utilizing a distinct and personal vocabulary MargaretGlew has created a body of work that engagesus in a contemporary and timely dialogue. By re-examining and re-interpreting her subject matter

in new and provocative ways, we too are forced toponder it anew and in so doing, to re-evaluate ourown place within it.

Gillian Reddyhoff

Gillian Reddyhoff is currently the curator of the Gov-ernment of Ontario Art Collection at the Archives ofOntario. Formerly a curator at the City of Torontos

Market Gallery, she has taught courses in Canadianart history at the Nova Scotia College of Art andDesign, written about contemporary Canadian artistsand curated numerous historic and contemporaryart exhibitions.

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Free Fall, the Paintings of Margaret Glew