A Quebec-based art magazine called Magazinart, on the scene there for 20 years, has just hit the stands with its summer issue. In the bilingual tradition of this magazine, key articles appear in both French and English in two parts of the magazine. And so it is that we are happy to report that an article by John Norris and Noel Meyer has been included both in English - "Landscapes in Modern Time", pp 116-118 -- and in French -- "Paysages des temps modernes", pp 68-70. Some nine images are repduced, including three that will be in McLeod's next show at Craig Scott Gallery -- Further Unmanned Strategies, which opens October 30. These are the 48" x 96" "The Conversation" (upper right), the 66" x 66" "Charing Cross" (below), and the title piece for the show, the 60 x 48" "Further Unmanned Strategies" (below right).
We will link in a later post to the full text of the article, which is heavily composed around an interview with McLeod in which he offers (insightful) insights about his work. I reproduce one paragraph below that helps orient the newcomer to McLeod's work:
Like many artists his style is difficult to pin down, certainly abstract, but also at times representational and loaded with both political and aesthetic content. "I think it is an extension of the abstract impressionists but it has gone further than that. I am also heavily influenced by David Milne, the Canadian painter, his whites and his sense of landscape."
In terms of McLeod's interactions with art and artists that have come before him, he is quoted as saying:
"I really try to look at art and its history and see where things have come from and try not to live just looking at my own art."
Amen to that. On the Craig Scott Gallery website, in a mini-essay, I also comment on this quality of McLeod's work:
Christian McLeod is a painter who is completely secure in his own skin, not duped by art-world fetishizing of the new and confusing of the new with the important. He is aware of his forebearers, including a particular call on his soul of both the Canadian landscape tradition, the Canadian (perhaps primarily Québécois) abstract tradition, and also Aboriginal traditions. In any given work, he may be in conversation with Canadian artistic ancestors like a Riopelle (e.g. Transformer”), a Borduas (so brilliantly echoed while arguably being surpassed in McLeod’s “Particles” series paintings), a Thompson, a Morriseau, or a Jackson. But his influences cannot but be – and are – global: as noted by [Gary Michael] Dault, one can in some pieces discern echoes of New York or Paris ‘School’ adherents like Gorky, de Kooning, Pollock, da Silva or de Stael; or, for that matter, discern the spirit of van Gogh (e.g. Burning Studio) or of ancient cave paintings (as commented on by Martin Mills in relation to the work Breaking Apart).
The magazine article also references new figurative work by McLeod, notably Warholian portraits of Tommy Douglas. The triptych "Tommy Clement Douglas" is currently on display at the gallery. More on this body of work in a future post.
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If interested in knowing more about McLeod's work, have a look at Gary Michael Dault's essay on McLeod's work written for the Craig Scott Gallery catalogue during McLeod's Ascending Language exhibition of June 2007. You can read that essay at: HERE. From there you can link to McLeod's Artist's Page and the Exhibition Page for that show.
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