The Sound STC•Vol.2 Issue 02
February 2016
One
INLAND
S PA C E
By Bart Gazzola
“
The works alternate
between massive, “manly” paintings, often dominated by darks
with breaks of vivid colour; these
works seem covered in an oily
black ‘scum’, almost ‘dirty.’
Page 12
”
of the things that has become relevant for
me lately is the idea of synchronicity: or perhaps I’m investing too much into the idea that the exhibition Inland,
by Shawn Serfas, an Assistant Professor at Brock University, brings together a number of uniquely relevant,
if somewhat unpredictable, points.
After all, the Canadian art world is small: so the fact that
Serfas was a student of mine during his BFA (Saskatoon),
before he his MFA (Alberta), isn’t that odd. He’s just
mounted a major exhibition of his work at Rodman Hall,
and perhaps thoughts of “prairie modernism” or “prairie
abstraction” still inform his work. My own attitudes about
those motifs have shifted / are shifting (partly due to geography, partly due to other factors). This supplies an interesting coincidence, a possibility to go deeper in looking
at Inland, which has been curated by Stuart Reid.
There’s also external factors in considering contemporary abstract painting: Ellsworth Kelly has passed,
and a massive retrospective of Frank Stella was recently
mounted. But it’s also worth considering Camille Paglia’s
acerbic — and insightful — declaration that many “regard
abstract painting with suspicion, as if it were a hoax or
fraud... there is more bad than good abstract art, which
has been compromised over the decades by a host of
inept imitations”.
Jerry Saltz calls it “zombie modernism” (and all the facile St. Justs to his Robespierre rush to quote it, like good
ignorant zealots). In Saskatoon, where Shawn and I met, I
christened it “karaoke modernism.” Imitative form without the spark of creativity: not even simulacra, but arrogant mimesis. The last exhibition I saw on the prairies,
Abject Abstract, presented two excremental examples of
this: Jon Vaughn and Allysha Larsen. They personify how
often those whom imitate the giants are as offensive as
they are unoriginal. I mention those not just for appropriate derision, but to highlight that distance allows insight
and proffers maturity. Serfas left, and has expanded his
vision and his practice. The geographic reference encapsulated in the title of his exhibition is another entertaining
interpretation (or coincidence).
His work fills the “lower” space: the two smaller alcove
rooms and the larger, sunken space. The works alternate between massive, “manly” paintings, often dominated by darks with breaks of vivid colour; these works
seem covered in an oily black “scum”, almost “dirty.” You
can stand amidst these works, having them encircle you,
and interact with them as they interact with each other.
Yellow T, Forge or Blacken (all part of the Inland Series)
are the more interesting. These are a painted series of
“monoliths.” Slit No. 2 is all oily blacks, vasoline gelled
whites with a red “dock” at the bottom, like an industrial
waste site, the interior organs of a sewer system. Forge
offers some light blues, muddy bloody dirty blacks scabbing over again, a lighter thicker tab in glutty white but
tainted with yellow and red streaks that ooze into the
“dock” at the bottom.
Second White from this series stands apart visually –
and literally, as it hangs in an alcove. This work is as
white as the others are black. Second is cracked and
flaky: more solemn, more funerary than the foreboding
oppression o