explorations in toronto art.

I recently stopped into LE Gallery on Dundas West, which has been impressing me lately in general, but one of their two current exhibitions is simply great. It’s a group of oil paintings by Megan McCabe. (There is also an exhibition of drawings of guns, by Scott Waters, which interested me a bit less.)

I feel implored to mention that painting is not a point of expertise, and I feel a bit out of my depth talking about it because I am used to feeling smart when I talk about photography and lens-based art. But really, the whole point of this writing is to tell you, my mysterious readers, why you should go and see it.

McCabe’s exhibition (her second solo show at LE) is titled Familiar Company, clever in that it references the presence of family and allusions to childhood summer holidays. The paintings are just abstract enough to make me curious; the colours and environments are jewel-like and verdant, made more so by the solid pieces of colour allowed by McCabe’s broad brushstrokes. What really makes me love the paintings is her rendering of the figures— the way she makes them look so realistically shaded and modeled, when viewed from far away, and so much like light and shadow blobs when seen closely. I realize this is nothing new, but it is exceptionally executed and results in a lot of viewing pleasure. Standout works are Yellow Canoe, Nude Summer, and Lunch Break on Big Lake. Please check out the slideshow on the LE website for more images!

There is a distinct similarity, that feels like a continuation of tradition, between McCabe’s work and certain famous Canadian landscape painters of the 20th century. I say this not to oversimplify (obviously, not all landscape painting produced in Canada references the Group of Seven!), but something about the scale of the brushwork in her smaller paintings (resulting in the aforementioned blobs I am so fond of), really reminds me of the wall’s worth of sketches by those ubiquitous artists, sketches and studies for paintings that I actually often prefer to the paintings themselves— maybe that ubiquity has something to do with it, but I digress.

McCabe’s style is distinct enough that within the first few minutes, I was reminded of another wonderful painting I saw at LE, of some nude figures running through an expanse of snow. On doing a bit of research for this piece, I found out the painting was, of course, by McCabe— I had seen it during her previous solo show, Out of Doors. Take a look at the link for the painting I mentioned.. it is aptly titled “Snow Run”.

There is a wonderful sense of leisure in these paintings, that evokes a kind of modern pastoral— a scene where we get to see ordinary people in the outdoors, but instead of being shepherds (Dirck van der Lisse, Abraham Bloemaert) or on a Sunday promenade (Georges Seurat), the figures are engaged in some quintessentially Canadian activities like canoeing and sitting in lawnchairs.. definitely good summer viewing, and a nice nod to the artist’s own culture.

The exhibition has ended, but I bet we’ll see quite a bit more Megan McCabe in the next while. Her paintings are exquisite, but evoke, as the title suggests, a comfortable familiarity.