{"id":35615,"date":"2016-09-25T13:56:03","date_gmt":"2016-09-25T17:56:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artoronto.ca\/?p=35615"},"modified":"2024-01-07T21:25:33","modified_gmt":"2024-01-08T02:25:33","slug":"wando-koop-in-absentia-at-divisionarsenal-gallery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/?p=35615","title":{"rendered":"Wando Koop: In Absentia at Division\/Arsenal Gallery"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Installation view of Wanda Koop,\u00a0In Absentia,\u00a0<\/em>Division\/Arsenal Gallery, 2016<\/p>\n

Squinting my eyes as you might do in great effort to make out the details of a sunset, until I can see that the sharp lines and saturated colours of Wanda Koop\u2019s paintings reveal the repeated patterns of a high-rise skyline. Filling both the adjoined spaces of Division and Arsenal Galleries, Koop\u2019s large body of work includes views from her Brooklyn Studio. Stalactites form the sky while stalagmites form the towering buildings. Some of the scenes are so closely cropped that the two components become further abstracted, undeniably resembling the horizontal stripes painted by the Abstract Expressionist Barnett Newman. Where the sky and scraper (\u2018tite\u2019 and \u2018mite\u2019) meet, there is no delineating line, only hard, purposeful edges to the planes of colour. The acrylic paint within each space has a cloudy quality composed of translucent layers applied either by wide brush strokes or poured in a sort of Helen Frankenthaler style to bleed the hues together. The effect is dreamlike, a space defined not by symbolism, but by colour and light.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Installation view with Wanda Koop, In\u00a0Absentia, (Horizon Orange – Ash Blue), 2015, acrylic on canvas on stretcher, 54″ x 78″<\/p>\n

In each of the paintings\u2019 titles Koop lists a new name for the colours produced by her style of application.\u00a0 Some of these descriptive names include \u2018mysterious rose grey\u2019, \u2018deep sepia \u2013 luminous white\u2019, \u2018red glow \u2013 copper\u2019, and \u2018deep grey \u2013 mist\u2019. The colour combinations with paint chip names evoke specific times of day or seasonal weather. If we are to appreciate each of these colour combinations and repeated motifs as studies of light or colour, then it is difficult not to draw parallels to Claude Monet\u2019s Rouen Cathedral series (1894). In this series of paintings, as he did with haystacks, Monet painted the cathedral in different lights to explore the expressive capacities of the Impressionist style: to capture a fleeting feeling instead of an exact object. Instead of painting pointed Gothic arches and spires, Koop has chosen a skyward symbol for the nearly religious Capitalism. In Koop\u2019s sky-scape titled “In Absentia (Opalecent Grey Blue)” (2015) the sky and the buildings are nearly the same shade of grey and as the buildings so clearly reflect their surroundings so they become a part of the sky; making it hard to know which way is up or down.casetify phone cases<\/a>look at more info<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Installation view with Wanda Koop, In\u00a0Absentia, (Blue – Transparent White), 2016, acrylic on canvas on stretcher, 20″ x 24″<\/span><\/p>\n

The exhibition title\u00a0In Absentia<\/em>\u00a0named after this body of work means \u2018In Absence\u2019, but this absence seems not to be the artist\u2019s or mine. Her paintings seem instead to represent an uninhabitable or rare space where the beauty of New York\u2019s architectural reality is valued above its economic symbolism \u2013 or perhaps an ode to ephemeral moments in the mega city\u2019s skyline.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Wanda Koop, In\u00a0Absentia, (Luminous Red – Rose – Deep Magenta), 2015, acrylic on canvas on stretcher, 54″ x 78″<\/p>\n

Text and photo: Alice Pelot<\/p>\n

*Exhibition information:\u00a0August 27 \u2013 October 8, 2016, Division \/ Arsenal Gallery, 45 Ernest Avenue, Toronto. Gallery hours: Tue – Sat 10 – 6 pm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Alice Pelot<\/strong><\/p>\n

Koop’s paintings seem to represent an uninhabitable or rare space where the beauty of New York\u2019s architectural reality is valued above its economic symbolism \u2013 or perhaps an ode to ephemeral moments in the mega city\u2019s skyline. <\/p>\n

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