CONCURRENT - GARY PEARSON & JACK JEFFREY

A favourite pairing for many with this Concurrent exhibition, Gary Pearson's Green Coat and Jack Jeffrey's After The Sculpture. There is just something about these two works, there just is. 



Gary Pearson

I’ve known Jack Jeffrey for many years and have followed his work with interest over that time. Of particular interest to me is the artist’s attention to sculptural form in the traditional sense of the word, and, to sculptures various avant-garde formations in the conceptual and material production of his own work. This, in concert with his speculative, one might say idiosyncratic tendency, toward complicating these references in the vocabulary of sculpture, have resulted in some of the most challenging and original art of our time.

The Green Coat is derived from a photograph I took at the Alhambra, in Grenada, Spain in late-January, 2014. The woman in the painting was, along with two friends, sitting on a ledge, and like a lot of tourists taking a break from the self-guided tour around the palace and fortress complex. And, not unlike many others this small group of friends were preoccupied with their mobile phones. The woman that I chose to paint was, when the photograph was taken, in the process of reaching into her purse to retrieve her phone.
I decided to paint only the one woman, leaving her two friends out.

I also severely edited the background details, eliminating parts of the Alhambra architecture and the buildings on the far hillside. I also changed the physical posture of the woman and portrayed her as relaxed or at rest, in contrast to the slightly nervous appearance of the woman in the photograph. In the painting, the woman holds tightly to her purse as a security measure, in effort to thwart any likelihood a purse snatcher should grab it in the event she dosed off. I decided on green as the principle color as it is associated with nature and the spring season.

Gary Pearson, The Green Coat, 2014

jack jeffrey
The wall-mounted sculpture in the exhibition Concurrent is part of a body of work that I call "Sculpture after Sculpture." The idea of the work is to present a sculpture with a complex set of associations, from basic mold-making, to line drawing, painting, sculpture, calligraphy…. The form of the work is in fact a mold of another object. The work is also meant to make historical reference to the "poetry" of arte povera, the "chance" of surrealism, the "phenomenology" of minimalism, and the "activity" of process art.

Jack Jeffrey lives in Vancouver where he works in a variety of disciplines including sculpture, installation, video, writing and music. His work often shows a playful, subtle, yet critical treatment of everyday objects and spaces. Jeffrey has exhibited extensively, including in Canada, Europe, Australia and China - most recently in the exhibitions, "nous reviendrons, vous reviendrez," in the Préfecture des Bouches-du-Rhône, Marseille, and, "édification," touring Galerie du Tableau, Marseille, Schneiderei Gallery, Vienna, and CSA Space, Vancouver.


Jack Jeffrey, Sculpture After Sculpture, 2014


Jack Jeffrey, Sculpture After Sculpture (detail),2014

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