Work by Jaan Poldaas.
February 5 – March 12
We are pleased to announce the gallery’s first solo exhibition of new paintings by Jaan Poldaas; whose show will also mark the artist’s first solo show of a new series of work in more than a decade. As heir apparent to Guido Molinari’s abstractionism, this body of work further separates him from the Canadian originator’s style of hard-edge; as always, Poldaas employs much more vibrant and intense coloration. Furthermore, this new series, while maintaining the earlier formalist rigidity, based in the artist’s architectural training, exhibits a never before seen playfulness. The transition from his well-known vertical rectangles to an almost woven pattern is immediately recognized. The work maintains the artist’s interests in systems, in so far as the widths of the bands change, so do the colour tones change from one geometric area to the next, in seemingly mathematical proportions. The work continues the artist’s long standing interest in both the interactions between primary and secondary colours and their relationship to black, as well as their grounding in the common everyday usage of the colours; often employing straight out of the can commercial enamels. Never has so much been seen in such a reduced palette and composition!