{"id":45293,"date":"2020-04-20T12:55:26","date_gmt":"2020-04-20T16:55:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artoronto.ca\/?p=45293"},"modified":"2020-04-20T13:22:00","modified_gmt":"2020-04-20T17:22:00","slug":"charles-bierk-at-metivier-gallery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/?p=45293","title":{"rendered":"Charles Bierk at Nicholas Metivier Gallery"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cCan\nyou believe it\u2019s not a photograph!?\u201d Toronto artist Charles Bierk has garnered\nmedia attention for his strikingly realistic portraiture before. Now, in his\nshow What Was Not Lost <\/em>at Nicholas\nMetivier Gallery, Bierk debuts a new approach to portraiture and further\ninvests his knack for life-like painting into capturing human depth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From a large black and white canvas, a young man peers directly at us. The surface minutia of his face is expanded beyond a comfortable size. The painting is Jalil<\/em> by Charles Bierk, and the sitter is the artist\u2019s friend. I am accessing the painting online in a filmed walkthrough<\/a> of the exhibition. The camera continues along the wall where we meet the similarly rendered Amika <\/em>and Richard<\/em>. Each painting pulls viewers into a haunting intimacy with the person depicted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Charles Bierk, Jalil, 2020, oil on canvas, 40 x 36 in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bierk\nhas made a successful practice of documenting his peers \u2013 young creatives in\nToronto. Like Jalil<\/em>, Amika<\/em> and Richard<\/em>, his body of work\nconsists mainly of large scale, photorealistic, black and white portraiture.\n\u201cCharles\u2019 paintings transfix the viewer not merely due to his technical\nfacility or their often massive scale but, above all, by virtue of their\ninherent humanity\u201d says Daniel Strong, Associate Director and Curator at\nGrinnell College Museum of Art. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Was Not Lost<\/em> represents a partial deviation from this work, in form though not in concept. For the first time, alongside his signature portraits, the show contains multi-paneled paintings of objects which Bierk has been developing since 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Charles Bierk, What Was Not Lost, 2019, oil on canvas, 36 x 84 in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nan interview with Metivier Gallery Bierk explains that the titular work \u201cWhat\nWas Not Lost<\/em>… contains my own keepsakes\u2026. I purposefully chose objects\nthat represent a person, place or time that I was missing in that moment. Together,\nthe painting is this sort of altar upon which I place the most sentimental\nthings I have carried with me.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After his own objects, Bierk returned to his circle of friends and began painting their selected mementos. In doing so he continues the work of documenting people, but in an approach mediated by their collected objects. In 2019, Bierk painted Katie<\/em>, and in 2020, in Remembrance #3<\/em> he depicts twelve nostalgic, personal objects of her choosing \u2013 each one carries a story or a link to a loved one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Charles Bierk, Remembrance #3, 2020, oil on canvas, 36 x 36 in. (left) and Katie, 2019, oil on canvas, 40 x 36 in. (right)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nconversation with the portraits, these series of emotive objects zero in,\nsimilarly, on the humanity of their subjects. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nwas once rummaging through a friend\u2019s drawer when a bar of Body Shop soap\ninterrupted my search for the perfect outfit. It was the same hand soap that my\nmother had bought when I was a kid, and not since. It reminded me of a bygone\ntime. Stories of this transportive sensation are well precedented in art.\nBierk\u2019s objects embody Proust\u2019s Madeleine. In explaining the title for the\nshow, he recalls a conversation with his brother, \u201cCasually, he said something\nabout the fact that these objects are the leftovers or the things that were not\nlost, unlike the people who they once belonged to.\u201d (Nicholas Metivier Gallery\nWebsite). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Was Not Lost<\/em> <\/a>is heavy with a sentiment that remains intact online, and even takes on new, thematically relevant significance. This distanced approach to the exhibit is conditioned by the same circumstances which currently separate us from the people in our own lives. We can access traces of them through telecommunications, through images, and now, as Bierk offers, through the objects they have loved and touched and shared with us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maya\nBurns<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Images\nare courtesy of Nicholas Metivier Gallery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*Exhibition information: April 2 \u2013 25, 2020, Nicholas\nMetivier Gallery, 190 Richmond Street East, Toronto. View it online at https:\/\/metiviergallery.com\/viewing-room\/4-charles-bierk-what-was-not-lost\/<\/a>\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Maya Burns<\/strong><\/p>\n

For the first time, alongside his signature portraits, the show contains multi-paneled paintings of objects<\/p>\n

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