David Sorenson’s latest series of paintings takes us on a tour of the Orient Evelyn Jacob SPOTLIGHT FEATURE H, EAST IS East, and West is West, and ne’er the twain shall ; " Kipling’s old saw doesn’ tut it with David Sorensen, and not just for reasons of dubious geography. An atstract painter originally . from West Vancouver, Sorensen has been profoundly influenced by the art and culture of the Orient. _And judging by his grand year-long tour of Asian galleries, the East has taken a shine to his enigmatic oils and contemplative charcoal sket- ‘ches. . On the 15th of this month, Sorensen opened a solo exhibit at the Canadian Embassy in Tokyo — : his largest'and most important showing to date.’ - Come this time next month he'll travel to the Metrepolitan Museum in Manilla, then the Nanyang . ,Acaderny of Fine Arts in . Singapore, Quebec Government - House in Hong Kong, Quebec City ‘and Montreal for the final leg of ‘the tour. Called Asian View, the show in- corporates work inspired by a re- - cent trip to Asia. Sorensen, who - now fives in the Eastern Townships of Quebec in a big old solar- ~ : powered house he built himself, has had a deep and abiding | love of ' things eastern, and his latest col- tection of paintings reflects his “ growing tove of the Asian esthetic. In 1991 Sorensen took a leave _. from Bishop's Coilege, where he “teaches life drawing part-time, to explore the Orient:-The paintings ©. on display at the Canadian Em- bassy are the result of that sojourn: , large canvases harboring images of elegant kimonos, windows, por- tals, Japanese ‘gates and other tranquil sights, executed in deep rusts, purples and vibrant blues. © “My trip to Asia made me think : about things I’ve. never thought of . before. For the first time in my life ‘felt I'd come home to some-. “thing,”" says Sorensen, who was . born in Vancouver and graduated ’ from West Vancouver Secondary. “The huge Japanese gates | saw were very powertul. In India we _ visited some Buddha caves which were dark and quiet and -. - meditative. That image’— and all of these images — keep ringing in my mind.” ‘Meditative and quiet are key: words to describe Sorensen’s art. As one critic noted, his canvases . are not about escapism but about ‘clarity, about a quiet place for meditation, somewhat like a ‘ sparse japanese garden. .. While modern abstract art has ‘often been branded empty and ’ unfeeling or even an artistic hoax “on the world (witness the recent uproar over U.S. abstract exnres- sionist Mark Rothko’s No. 16. Rothko, by the way, happens to be .. one of Sorensen’s biggest influ- ences), Sorensen’s simpje canvases provide a place of refuge fora “ weary soul. He says he has always worked i in the abstract because it allows him .-to look for mere meaningful “. statements. Then again, Sorensen would be the first to admit that modern abstract painting has, to a large extent, deservedly earned its reputation as inaccessible. “(see a lot of abstract art that | don’t identify with, but it’s the same with figurative. The reason the public doesn’t respond to abstract art in a mass way is because its meaning (and pres- entation) is more subtle. And there's a lot of stuff out there that, frankly, isn’t very good, When they say, ‘My kid could do it,’ they’re right.’’ Good art, he says, has to resolve certain issues, such as how colors relate and how images are con- structed. His inspiration is reflected in his sketch books, in his unfinished. ar- chitectural renderings of Indian marble columns, Japanese shrines and Kyoto stones. Sorensen’s visual vocabulary grew out of his early studies with Jack Shadbolt, Bill Reid and Arthur Erickson. Back in the ’50s he had his sights set on a career in architecture until a trip to Europe prompted him to abandon his degree part-way through. immersing himself in 2 culture brimming with art left him a changed man. . .When he returned to Van-’ couver, Sorensen switcher! from ‘ UBC to the then Vancouver School of Art where he met people like Shadbolt and Roy Kiyooka. . “1 think my parents were ina, mild state of shock,"’ he laughs. At about the same time, he met well-regarded sculptor Jack Har- man and joined his Vancouver -: foundry. One of the pieces he helped create during his stint there was part of a statue in the Family of Man sculpture outside the Pacific . Press Building. “It was a female arm, that’s all I remember,” he says of the anon- ymous limb. : By the time he had launched his first solo exhibit in Mexico City in 1964 he had graduated to large, David Sorancon A SKETCHED rendering of an actual gateway in Kyoto. The fragmentary sketches from 1990 and 1991 trace the initial development et what would become the Asian series. primitive heads. But his sculpture proved increasingly difficult to sell. His heads, one might say, had become swollen. “They were getting bigger and bigger and it got to be a major fac- tor having to pay rent on places to store the work,”’ he says. So in the early ‘70s Sorensen made the switch to watercolor and eventually to oil on canvas. His current work, he says, is constantly evolving as he experi- ments with new ideas, forms and materials, ‘- “You find out more and more about yourself as you go along,”’ he says. “Your work keeps telling you whe you are,” y s LB ais, cr Se 10; 15 Oe war fuly 311 1 N oe oo Cte ji : ye \ io: Aug 2 Wed. Aug i \e Fig ‘\ \, ROMANCE\* * et PACKAGE ep Fireworks. Live Jazz BBQ Salmon o Steak served with pasta & green salad with ovo fresh B.C. Oysters ... All for only $15.95 (plus taxes) per person. 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