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<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nInstallation view of Gavin Lynch, Mixed Greens<\/em>. Photo: Alex Fischer<\/p>\n\n\n\n Specifically on display in this show is a more diverse set of images, hence the choice of the term \u2018mixed\u2019 in the title one assumes. They are \u2018green\u2019 in the sense that paintings are still loosely based on nature \u2013 images of wild flowers and abstractions that allude to landscape. But nature is not the defining influence of these works. In a black and white painting titled The Skeleton Dance<\/em>, for example, we are treated to a composition based on Henri Matisse\u2019s cut-outs of dancers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Skeleton Dance<\/em>, 2020, acrylic and airbrush on canvas, 48″ x 72″ <\/p>\n\n\n\n Similarly two abstractions \u2013 Nouveau Paysage<\/em> and Pavillion \u2013 <\/em>incorprate Buren inspired green stripes. There is a certain irony in this choice given that Daniel Buren\u2019s ubiquitous stripes were a sort of declaration of the end of painting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nouveau Paysage<\/em>, 2020, acrylic and oil on canvas, 72″ x 60″ <\/p>\n\n\n\n Pavillion<\/em>, 2020, acrylic, watercolour, and airbrush on canvas, 35″ x 65″ <\/p>\n\n\n\n Two other paintings \u2013 Reanimating the Falls<\/em> and Leaving Emishi (Ashitaka\u2019s Falls)<\/em> \u2013 that depict a waterfall, are nonetheless not derived from nature. They are based on images from a film by the Japanese animation studio Ghibli, directed by Hayao Miyazaki. This conflating of the real and simulation is by all accounts a deliberate strategy of Lynch\u2019s. The idea was made famous by the French social theorist Jean Baudrillard, whose term \u2018simulacra\u2019 (i.e., simulated versions of reality) Lynch uses to describe his work. Moreover, Lynch seems to embrace Baudrillard\u2019s notion of hyperreality. The hyperreal<\/em> describes that which is more real \u2013 more alluring \u2013 than banal reality. Indeed, our postmodern condition is characterized by our inability to separate the two domains \u2013 they merge into one. Ghibli studio\u2019s creation exactly illustrates this idea. The studio\u2019s reimagining of a land inhabited by an historical tribe called the Emishi inspired a company to build a physical version of one of their villages in the Mie Prefecture in Uga Valley, Japan. Here history and fantasy are conflated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Reanimating the Falls<\/em>, 2020, acrylic on canvas, 60″ x 72″ <\/p>\n\n\n\n Leaving Emishi (Ashitaka’s Falls)<\/em>, 2020, acrylic on canvas, 24″ x 36″ <\/p>\n\n\n\n On one wall hang three vertical scroll-like paintings which are ostensibly depictions of endangered Canadian wildflowers. At least that is what their titles suggest \u2013 Dogbane<\/em>, Pale Corydalis<\/em> and Pitcher\u2019s Thistle.<\/em> But the subject matter turns out to be largely incidental. Lynch has taken images of these flowers and manipulated them with computer software. It is these manipulated images that are the starting point for the paintings themselves. Lynch tells the catalogue essay writer Bill Clarke: \u201cSo, the resulting paintings appear\u2026glitchy.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Pale Corydalis<\/em> (left) Pitcher\u2019s Thistle<\/em> (center) and Dogbane<\/em> (right), all three 2020, acrylic and airbrush on canvas, 92″ x 22″ <\/p>\n\n\n\n Terms like\n\u2018glitchy\u2019, \u2018pixelated\u2019 and \u2018low res\u2019 of course get their meanings through the\nubiquitous screens by which our world is now mediated. And indeed, Lynch\u2019s work\nmight plausibly be described as screen-based in this sense. The screen has\nbecome the ultimate vehicle, Baudrillardian hyperreality. What we see on the\nscreen and what we see in the physical world is becoming more and more\ndifficult to distinguish. Lynch exploits this fact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The result is a techno-aesthetics. Lynch celebrates the world not as it appears to us on the screen, but the world of the screen. The screen-flatness of his imagery is made explicit by his use of paint on canvas \u2013 that old-time technology. That is why, I am guessing, he often uses impasto \u2013 to accentuate the materiality of the paint in contrast to the cool flatness of screen imagery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n