{"id":56582,"date":"2025-07-17T21:09:03","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T01:09:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artoronto.ca\/?p=56582"},"modified":"2025-11-01T13:57:18","modified_gmt":"2025-11-01T17:57:18","slug":"peter-templeman-at-christopher-cutts-gallery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/?p=56582","title":{"rendered":"Peter Templeman at Christopher Cutts Gallery"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Peter Templeman: Into the Void<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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

Peter Templeman, Petroglyphs<\/em>, 2024, acrylic on panel, 16 x 20 inches<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his exhibition at the Christopher Cutts Gallery, Peter Templeman, having gone Into the Void<\/em> returns here with the painted evidence of his journey. Big Phase No. 5<\/em> (1997), an oil on canvas measures 72 x 84 inches, and the appropriately named acrylic on canvas Wheel<\/em> (2022), at a mere eight inches square, serve as bookends to Templeman\u2019s odyssey. The 2024 acrylic on panel, Petroglyphs<\/em> have the qualities of an Egyptian cartouche, its \u201chieroglyphs\u201d enclosed within their customary oval. Cryptic, yet conversely transparent, the panel amounts to an artist signature or seal, somehow punctuating his work as official \u2013 as if carved in stone.<\/p>\n\n\n

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

Peter Templeman, Phase No. 2<\/em>, 1997, oil on canvas, 72 x 60 inches<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Centrepieces of the Into the Void<\/em> works are four major paintings that Christoper Cutts acquired subsequent to a late 1990s visit to the artist\u2019s studio. After decades in storage, these artworks were combined and displayed here with contemporary pieces from Templeman\u2019s studio. A visit by the artist to the Cutts Gallery this past winter tweaked a reminder of the stored works, thereby kicking its exhibition wheel into full gear. The Phase Series<\/em> (No. 2<\/em>, No. 3<\/em>, No. 4<\/em>, and Big Phase<\/em> No. 5<\/em>)\u201d are significant paintings in Templeman\u2019s oeuvre. Besides their relative scale to the rest of the exhibition, they exemplify a successful synthesis of control and abandonment. Templeman\u2019s painterly forays into his \u201cvoid\u201d divide variously into the more or less ordered. His Paintings 1 \u2013 9<\/em> as a group, paints the abyss as roiled chaos. His 2014 Rocking on the High Seas<\/em> has the artist steering directly into the eye of the storm.<\/p>\n\n\n

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

Peter Templeman, Rocking on the High Seas<\/em>, 2014, oil on canvas, 24 x 18 inches<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An unflinching resolve to go to the \u201cwall\u201d with each painterly outing is typical fare with Templeman. Relatively early in the artist\u2019s career, the French Symbolist literature of Gide, Rimbaud and Beaudelaire, had primed the young artist to a receptivity of the unconscious realm. The \u201cwall,\u201d seemingly without exception here, is the dark unknown, against which every scumbled brush stroke gleams. In geologic terms, Big Phase No. 5<\/em> may be seen as a motherlode, the artist\u2019s repository of countless layers of paint. Their formation amounts to the congeal of phantasms into ever-shifting tectonic plates of pigment. Through a kind of alchemy, the deposit of everyday sight and sound minutiae is made precious in the act of having been made visible.<\/p>\n\n\n

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

Peter Templeman, Big Phase No. 5<\/em>, 1997, oil on canvas, 72 x 84 inches<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Templeman\u2019s 2014 oil on panel, The Void<\/em>, features a window or portal. The viewer, once entered, is drawn into a vortex where tumult is the price of admission. The effect is one of tunnelling, amplifying a sense of dimension within dimensions. Here the artist is possibly throwing us the key to his creative \u201ctripping,\u201d with some of the GPS signposts along the way. Its loosely brushed \u201cO\u201d shape around the window hub might suggest the Greek last letter omega. Regardless, a sense of the cosmic is inferred with the artist stretching his craft to the limit. The 2015 canvasses such as Top Knot<\/em> and Physual<\/em> read as an interlacing of enigmatic glyphs. As syllabic utterances that coalesce, they exemplify the body of works where Templeman has tamed his tempests.<\/p>\n\n\n

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

Peter Templeman, The Void<\/em>, 2014, oil on panel, 42 x 36 inches<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With a 50-year-long career and many artists of note that Templeman has rubbed shoulders with, a consistency of development and vision predominates. While Graham Coughtry had impacted the artist as a student, Toronto\u2019s Three Schools of Art introduced him to the art of John MacGregor, who\u2019s improvisational surrealist method provided a significant building block. Templeman\u2019s now distinct brushed iconography is part of a connective abstract tradition that threads generations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Images are courtesy of Christopher Cutts Gallery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*Exhibition information: Peter Templeman, Into the Void<\/em>, June 21 \u2013 July 12, 2025, 21 Morrow Ave, Toronto. Gallery hours: Tue to Sat 10am – 6pm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Steve Rockwell<\/strong>
\nTempleman\u2019s now distinct brushed iconography is part of a connective abstract tradition.<\/p>\n

Read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":56568,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,76],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-steve-rockwell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56582"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57190,"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56582\/revisions\/57190"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/56568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}