{"id":54733,"date":"2024-12-04T15:32:57","date_gmt":"2024-12-04T20:32:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artoronto.ca\/?p=54733"},"modified":"2024-12-04T15:42:56","modified_gmt":"2024-12-04T20:42:56","slug":"jim-reid-at-lonsdale-gallery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/?p=54733","title":{"rendered":"Jim Reid at Lonsdale Gallery"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Jim Reid\u2019s latest exhibition, Forgotten Places<\/em>, on the main floor of Lonsdale Gallery features 17 paintings, which are mostly acrylic on canvas, but it includes several watercolour and pastels on paper. It may be more accurate, however, to describe the acrylic paintings as sculptures. They are so laden with paint that their surfaces read more as reliefs compared to the flat surfaces we are most accustomed to expect. Indeed, close up these works appear to be mad experiments in the accrual of paint on canvas. How much paint can a canvas hold? A lot it seems!<\/p>\n\n\n

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Installation view of Jim Reid, Forgotten Places <\/em>at Lonsdale Gallery<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is only when the viewer stands back that she can begin to discern a landscape, or some detail thereof. Reid\u2019s perennial subject matter is the land surrounding his home and studio. He lives in the Caledon area. The places that interest him mostly are those areas which unsuitable for farming have essentially been left or abandonned. These he refers to as forgotten places. All the same, most of this land has long since lost any of its original growth. It has been rewilded. And it is this process that particularly interests Reid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For instance, his painting Feral Orchard 1-9-10<\/em> features apple trees that have become wild. Reid notes that these apple trees are not originally native to Canada, but rather were brought over in the nineteenth century from Europe. Indeed, in general humans have altered the landscape so extensively and for so long that barely any corner of the globe is pristine. As ecologist Bill McKibben remarks, nature in the sense of a natural environment untouched by human civilisation no longer exists. Reid acknowledges this fact.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Feral Orchard 1-9-10, 2010, acrylic on canvas, 36 x 48 inches<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But his paintings are clearly not straightforward documents of this rewilding process given their abstract nature. What we encounter in front of each of his acrylic paintings is a study in impasto, with layer upon layer of scumbled, brushed and scraped paint. The surfaces are gorgeous in their own right. At times I wondered whether there was any need at all for these markings to represent anything, insofar as they do so. I was informed that in some of them, buried in the layers of paint, are residues of dirt. This is a result of the fact that at least in the initial stages Reid works in plein air, putting the canvas on the ground. I think Reid\u2019s working method tells us the way in which his paintings relate to the \u2018wilderness\u2019 they putatively represent.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Forgotten Place, Field Ravine, 2024, acrylic on canvas, 72 x 120 inches<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is quinetessentially an immersive method of working. Reid is not recording these places at a particular time, but instead he is documenting his intimate interaction with the landscape over a very long period of time \u2013 decades in fact. So what he is interested in depicting are not the topographical details of the places around him, but the very history of the place of which he now is evidently part. In an erstwhile interview he described these places as marginal lands \u2013 what he calls in this show \u2018forgotten\u2019 \u2013 that he planned to continue visiting. This to me is a confession of his topophilia<\/em>, that is, love of place. He is in love with the natural world around him, and has immersed himself in it.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Forgotten Place, July, 2024, acrylic on canvas, 76 x 120 inches<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The consequence of this is his intoxication with the land that otherwise people largely pass by on their way to somewhere else. There is no elsewhere for Reid. This is truly his home. It is this that his paintings relate, namely, a deep pathos for this corner of the world. Just as the places we call home are not simply physical, so it is that Reid is not interested in representing these places merely in their physical details. Rather, he wants to express his emotional attachment, with all its cultural, historical and personal associations. Appreciating this helped me at least to make sense of what Reid is doing in these paintings.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Early Spring Forest 6-04-19, 2019, acrylic on canvas, 48 x 48 inches<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All the paintings are on a human scale. They depict the natural world from the walker\u2019s point of view. This fact reminds me of a remark by Henry Thoreau: \u201cMy vicinity affords many good walks; and so for many years I have walked almost everyday…, I have not yet exhausted them. An absolutely new prospect is a great happiness, and I can still get this any afternoon.\u201d(Walking) <\/em>Part of what Reid\u2019s pictures express is this inexhaustable joy in experiencing the endless variety in nature. He wants to share this sentiment with us. That explains the energy of these pictures. They are explosions of colour and texture, and yet one suspects that Reid himself feels that he never quite matches the sheer abundance he sees in the forest around him. He has to keep coming back.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Forest Pool 21-7-23, 2023, acrylic on canvas, 24 x 40 inches<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As noted, alongside Reid\u2019s medium and large scale acrylic paintings hang several exquisite works on paper, executed on a much more intimate scale. One of the strengths of Reid\u2019s style is the looseness of his adroit touch, the assured way he renders a branch or tangle of plants. This touch is manifested more directly in his works on paper. The energy he brings to his paintings is infectious. This show is a tonic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hugh Alcock<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Images are courtesy of Lonsdale Gallery<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*Exhibition information: Jim Reid, Forgotten Places, <\/em>October 26 \u2013 December 21, 2024, Lonsdale Gallery, 410 Spadina Road, Toronto. Gallery hours: Wed \u2013 Sat 11 am \u2013 5 pm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Hugh Alcock<\/strong><\/p>\n

The energy he brings to his paintings is infectious. This show is a tonic.<\/p>\n

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