THE END IS MY BEGINNING
Gary Pearson
Central Gallery
March 30 to May 25, 2008
The Kamloops Art Gallery is proud to present a solo exhibition by Gary Pearson, one of British Columbia’s most dynamic contemporary painters. The End is My Beginning features new paintings and works from the last half decade. It is Pearson’s first solo exhibition in Kamloops.
The surfaces of Pearson’s paintings are highly worked and richly textured. They are often close to monochromatic, punctuated by surprising, off-key bursts of colour. Although Pearson began as an abstract painter, today most of his works portray individuals and groups of people in semi-public and transient venues, such as bars, diners, or hotels. Patterns remain an important feature of all his compositions, and may consist of words, palm trees, architectural features, and other images or symbols. His drawing style is deliberately crude, which gives his works a direct and earthy character.
There are narratives in Pearson’s art, but they are all unresolved or indeterminate. The works therefore draw heavily on what the viewer brings to them for their meaning, posing possibilities for deep resonance, and reflections on melancholy, humour, isolation, human dignity, longing, and resolve. Along with paintings and drawings, Pearson produces videos, which share a painterly quality in their production style and visual appearance.
At the Kamloops Art Gallery, Pearson presents some of his latest work from 2007, a selection from his 2005 Greenville series, which was inspired in part by the songs of Lucinda Williams, some earlier drawings, and two videos. All of the works feature scenes from everyday life in unnamed places.
Gary Pearson is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies at the University of British Columbia Okanagan in Kelowna. He has shown his work widely across Canada as well as in Germany, Norway, Poland, the USA, and Australia.
The exhibition is accompanied by a full-colour catalogue with a feature essay by former Thompson Rivers University instructor, poet, and performance artist David Bateman, and an interview with the artist by KAG curator, Jen Budney.
Generously sponsored by Off-Centre Magazine, 98.3 CIFM, Pollard Banknote Limited
Gary Pearson
I’m going back to Greenville, 2005
oil on canvas
Collection of the Kamloops Art Gallery, Purchased with the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts Acquisition Assistance Program
