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gary blundell
central ontario 99/01
central ontario 02/03
central ontario 04/05
cobalt 06/08
elliot lake 04/05
france 04/05
iceland 01/03
lake superior 97/04
newfoundland 98/04
pacific rim 06
planets 1996
sudbury 05/07
thunder bay 06
twillingate 08
yukon 00
wood block cuts
bio
media
cv
victoria ward
cobalt 06/08
early work
france 04/05
gamey
iceland
local work
sudbury 05/07
bio
media
cv
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Hotspur Studio
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biography - e. gary blundell |
“I care not to paint pretend pictures of long views which blur
the particular and insult the living,…those landscapes that trash the truths as
they reach ever upwards into the sky, as though we only know somewhere or
somebody from a distance…that’s the lie of the land while the truth is never far
away but up close in the dirt…”
Richard Flanagan, ‘Gould’s Book of Fish’
“It is not the major but rare catastrophes of the world, the floods that wash
away your villages, the earthquakes that swallow up your cities, that move me;
what wastes my heart away is the corrosive power that lies concealed in the
natural universe – in Nature, which has brought forth nothing that does not
destroy both its neighbour and itself. And so I go my fearful way betwixt heaven
and earth and all their active forces; and all I see is a monster, forever
devouring, regurgitating, chewing and gorging.”
Goethe
“…the
earth is a kind of alchemical fragment, a piece of metal that is still burning
inside, still being forged from a great fire.”
Anselm Kiefer, ‘Heaven and Earth’
 My
work is a life long struggle to connect to the world through painting. Painting is a force, a way toward the infinite.
I see a through-line from the edges of the universe, to the surface of
the Earth, to the cells that we are made of.
Natural structures are built and demolished causing endless patterning.
Humans build and destroy creating the pattern of civilization.
My paintings begin with and are about my relationship with these
patterns.
As a trained geologist, I often begin with rocks. They contain astounding
patterning, chaotic and ordered, and extremely varied in colour.
Already abstracted, they are full of dynamic energy.
They tell great tales of the history of the Earth, of millions of years
of deposition, movement, collision and deconstruction.
Slow and mythic in proportion, the history of the Earth’s rocks
establishes an archetypal framework for my work.
In practical terms, I use rocks as a starting point to explore my interest in
patterning. I create a web of
shapes evoking hydroelectric lines, lots and concessions, roads, city grids,
quarries and mines, river systems, aerial photos, tectonic plates, satellites
and human tissue. My paintings then
reflect landscape as often transformed through development and always imbued
with human memory.
I
use a router to carve into a surface, to mimic how land is transformed over time
and through technology. The router
makes the patterns definitive and seemingly permanent.
My work is deliberately bold, rugged and lacks sentiment.
My
earlier incarnation as a scientist allows my investigations to be provocative
and creates a comfort level for accidents. Through experimentation, I have
learned that all outcomes are valuable. Accidents
offer different directions for the patterns making works that are farther and
farther removed from their starting point.
The process is an unfolding story, a state of breakdown and reformation,
a search for the appropriate ending.
My painting is an evolution, a slow process from an idea to art, a struggle
between the cerebral and the sensual. It
reflects more heart and soul than brain. And
it is the colour in my work that represents the violence and metamorphosis in
patterns. Colour keeps the work in
balance; it represents heat and change. Colour
is like the rocks themselves, alive and moving all the time.
Necessarily
fraught, my work is both calculating and romantic.
I am prone to paint and live in this dichotomy.
E.
G. Blundell was born in London, England and immigrated to Canada in 1962. He remembers lying in a field as a child watching some
balloons disappear into the vast emptiness of the sky.
He remembers looking at everything on the ground.
After graduating from University, he traveled throughout Europe looking
at art. He then began to paint.
He researched the techniques of other artists and took some courses.
In 1992, his appendix burst and he nearly died.
Shortly thereafter, he began exhibiting his work.
He is inspired by Chaim Soutine, Anselm Kiefer, Turner, Van Gogh, Francis
Bacon, Paterson Ewen, David Milne and the Abstract Expressionists, among others.
His work has been exhibited across Canada, including the Winsor Gallery
in Vancouver, the BUSgallery, Zsa Zsa, V. MacDonnell Gallery and Joseph D.
Carrier Gallery in Toronto, the Belgo Building in Montreal, Gamma Ray and
Artguise in Ottawa, the Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa, the MacLaren Art
Centre in Barrie, the Thunder Bay Art Gallery and the Art Gallery of Sudbury.
His exhibition at BUSgallery was listed by EYE Weekly as one of the 10
best exhibitions in Toronto in 2001. He
was artist-in-residence at the Straumur Arts Commune, Iceland in 2001and at
Pouch Cove, Newfoundland in 1998. His
work can be found in collections throughout Canada.
The
pictures of Gary are taken in the hotspur studio in Highlands East.
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Hotspur Studio
upcoming events:
Victoria Ward
2008
'rockets and gallows',
new
work
Katharine Mulherin
Contemporary Art Projects, DECADE, September
Pentimento
Fine Art Gallery Toronto,
October 2 - 26
Art
Gallery of Peterborough, March 13 - May 10, 2009
'shining
or something electric', poetry & imagery book, hand bound by Don
Taylor.
Email us if you want one!
Gary Blundell 2008
Katharine Mulherin
Contemporary Art Projects, DECADE, September
Art
Gallery of Northumberland Cobourg, October 18 -
November 29
Artguise
Ottawa, October
24 -
November 12
Art
Gallery of Peterborough, March 13 - May 10, 2009
Pentimento
Fine Art Gallery Toronto, April 2009
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