FFWD Weekly
Copyright © 1998 All Rights Reserved.
| VISUAL ARTS CHRISTOPHER KIER: Topography I always enjoy visiting Newzones gallery on 11 Ave S.W. Specifically designed to house an art gallery, the spanking new building features viewer-friendly niches and rooms where Helen Zenith and her daughter Tamar actively promote an array of - if not cutting edge - individualistic contemporary artworks. The building itself ranks as one of Canada's finest commercial art galleries. This past weekend I stopped in at Newzones to check out Topography, Christopher Kier's recent series of mixed media/encaustic paintings. It was overcast and snowing lightly, and the day's morose colors were mirrored in Kier's rectangular abstract images, which appear as solitary door and window-like forms suspended in the middle of large square canvasses. The 38-year-old artist's somber grey, brown, tan, pale yellow, red and off-white palette suggests faded wood and brick, rust and concrete; tokens of the urban landscape. "Topography Series #1," for instance, resembles the side of an old building that's stripped down and waiting to be demolished. In the past, Kier has painted ceremonial bowls and kayak-shaped totemic images, and he says despite its non-representational nature, Topography reflects his ongoing interest in reliquaries and shrines. Nevertheless, his current work - especially with its freewheeling forms restrained by a rectangular picture format - clearly projects an abstract expressionist esthetic. Kier acknowledges being influenced by '50s and '60s abstractionists and he agrees with the spiritual notions of pure abstraction. But the Toronto artists (who makes a living solely by painting) explains he is more interested in the expressive gestural potential of encaustic (pigment mixed with melted wax), which he cuts and scrapes with painting knives or dribbles and slathers onto canvasses alongside smooth metallic swatches of gold and silver leaf. At times, though, it would seem Kier can't see the forest for the trees. Although his playful meanderings on the surface suck you into the paintings, once you draw back you'll often observe a lack of unity. It's as if the artist had so much fun noodling around with texture he forgot about everything else. Part of the problem is Kier hasn't completely come to terms with the thick bare encaustic frames that enclose his primary images. Only in some cases - where his color scheme embraces the whole painting, or the central image's boundaries are smushed over like icing on a cake, or his composition is more focused - do the gobs of silvery metal, drizzled wax and soft-edged swipes of color actually integrate with one another. Since Kier's intent is mainly sensual and tactile, I wonder why he doesn't incorporate more lively colors or, at least, less rigid, unconventional shapes. Perhaps, if like the abstract expressionists of yore, he utilized the entire picture field, his paintings would evoke more feeling. |