{"id":45858,"date":"2020-10-03T16:31:40","date_gmt":"2020-10-03T20:31:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artoronto.ca\/?p=45858"},"modified":"2020-10-03T16:43:42","modified_gmt":"2020-10-03T20:43:42","slug":"ben-walmsley-channels-tom-thomson-at-birch-contemporary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/?p=45858","title":{"rendered":"Ben Walmsley Channels Tom Thomson at Birch Contemporary"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ben Walmsley captures the pleasure of landscape painting at his POLYCHROME 2020<\/em> exhibition at Birch Contemporary. All is not as it seems, however. The seemingly rapid execution of a selection of Tom Thomson oil sketches, upon closer examination, reveal a methodical, patiently laborious process. That a rigorous analysis of Thomson\u2019s work has gone into Walmsley\u2019s exhibition is evidenced by the colour bar below each work, much the way a bar in musical notation measures segments of time to specific beats and particular value. In this respect, the exhibition is a performance of a suite of visual \u00e9tudes. Yet, how could something so obviously studied have been made to look spontaneous? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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POLYCHROME I, 2020, mixed media on wood, 14 x 14 in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aside from breaking down the colours of each Thomson sketch into eight discrete hues, the artist has separated the application of textured impasto of the ground from its colouration. That is, texture has been rendered in white plaster as underpainting, upon which pigmentation has subsequently been added. In other words, Walmsley had the painterliness baked in even before the first lick of paint. With the exhibition title POLYCHROME<\/em>, Walmsley points to the historical practice of colouring sculpture with paint. From this perspective, the artist\u2019s version of “The Jack Pine\u201d was essentially complete before it was ever painted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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POLYCHROME X,<\/strong> 2020, mixed media on wood, 14 x 14 in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do these Walmsley paintings hold up to the Thomson originals? Since the intent of the artist was not to make a slavish copy of the subject, the question may not be a fair one. With a one to one comparison between them, of course the Walmsley doesn\u2019t measure up. Attempt at equivalency may not be the point. His approach has been, rather to \u201cscore\u201d each Thomson sketch before \u201cplaying\u201d them. With this, the distinction between a Walmsley and a Thomson is unambiguous. A buyer at the POLYCHROME<\/em> exhibition clearly buys a Walmsley, not a Thomson. Furthermore, with the works being separated by a century, the obvious cultural differences between the respective times become fundamental to the discussion. A contemporary artist can\u2019t duplicate what Thomson and the Group of Seven accomplished. To provincial admirers of an academically-painted landscape, a Thomson painting was radical. Group of Seven exhibitions actually aroused critical and public outrage in their time. To the general public today, artistic transgressions, were they to occur, don\u2019t garner much interest.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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POLYCHROME XIV, 2020, mixed media on wood, 14 x 14 in. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Technically, Walmsley\u2019s POLYCHROME<\/em>s <\/em>fall under the category of Appropriation Art. There is an implication in the term that something is being stolen without an owner\u2019s permission. In ways that I have already discussed, the label doesn\u2019t quite apply here in the strictest sense. Walmsley has taken pains to formalize the painting of his Thomson\u2019s in the direction of a match between an original and his version of it. From painting to painting, the artist seems to have hung up his brush after lobbing his colours across the white sculpted court in eight distinct sets. I enjoyed the show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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POLYCHROME IV, 2020, mixed media on wood, 14 x 14 in. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Steve Rockwell<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Images are courtesy of Birch Contemporary, photo: Toni\nHafkenscheid<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*Exhibition information: Ben Walmsley, POLYCHROME 2020<\/em>,\nSeptember 10 \u2013 October 17, 2020, Birch Contemporary, Birch Contemporary, 129\nTecumseth Street, Toronto. Gallery hours: Wed \u2013 Fri 10 am \u2013 6 pm, Sat 11 am \u2013 5\npm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Steve Rockwell<\/strong><\/p>\n

Walmsley has taken pains to formalize the painting of his Thomson\u2019s in the direction of a match between an original and his version of it.<\/p>\n

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