davidnewkirk — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 19:28:59 +0000

Until about 1995, I was a realist painter. The earliest works I exhibited were my attempts to get close to the high realism of artists like Jack Chambers of London, Ontario who was active in a very vibrant art scene there in the 1960s and 70s. I was also an admirer of the work of Alex Colville and Christopher Pratt, Philip Pearlstein, Chuck Close and others.

But by the mid 1990s, I was not having much fun painting anymore, now feeling confined by the rather slow and deliberate way that I had always made paintings. I wanted to bust out, but didn’t really know how to do that immediately. Making realist paintings, and being deliberate and methodical in my practice were so ingrained that big changes would only come very slowly.

The path that I have taken from realism to abstraction is an almost boringly stereotypical one that many artists have followed. Piet Mondrian, for example, who ended by painting only collections of squares and rectangles using primary colours and black and white, began his painting career with what now look to me like rather mundane 19^th century landscapes. His journey took him first to an impressionistic style that over several years became more abstract and cubist, and finally resolved into the very severe style he is most known for – the squares in primary colours – a style he called neo-plasticism. An important distinction should be mentioned – Mondrian was painting in the heyday of modernism, generally considered to be the last great frontier of painting. He was intent on creating something entirely new, a style never before seen. It is also generally agreed that today, there are no radical inventions left to discover in painting. This means that in becoming an abstract painter, I am aware that I won’t be making things that are completely distinct from all of art history. I make abstract paintings for other reasons that I have tried to explain in more detail in the text that accompanies the images of each series of works.

(selected images, 1970 – 2007)

Farm Near Lafontaine, 1970, oil on canvas, 22 x 30 in.

private collection

Bill, 1978, oil on canvas, 30 x 40 in.

private collection

Island Ferry, 1979, oil on canvas, 72 x 48 in.

private collection

Installation view, David Newkirk: 10 Years, Thames Cultural Centre,

Chatham Ontario, 1980

Woman at Window, 1981, oil on canvas, 30 x 22 in.

private collection

Red Delicious Apples, 1987, oil on canvas, 72 x 48 in.

private collection

Jen, 1999, acrylic on canvas, 30 x 30 in.

private collection

Waiting Game, 1999, acrylic on canvas, 48 x 30 in.

Calais 1, 2002, acrylic on canvas, 48 x 36 in.

Genesis Dreams, Portal 2, 2002, acrylic on canvas, 48 x 60 in.

Retribalizer 3, 2005, acrylic on canvas, 60 x 48 in.

collection of Rogers Broadcasting Ltd.

Recent Work, 2006, Loop Gallery, Toronto

Installation view, Recent Work, 2006, Loop Gallery, Toronto

Stranded 3, 2006, acrylic on canvas, 60 x 48 in.

Looking for Jack, Bialetti 1, 2007, triptych, acrylic and pastel on paper, 21 x 61 in.