te

ALTHOUGH WEST Vancouver painter Gordon Smith
looks out on the rugged coastline surrounding Lighthouse
Park when he paints, he doesn’t really sce the scene before

him.

“T may look out and see the sea
changing color and that might
spark something, but it’s really
just a trigger,"' says Smith, one of
Canada’s best-known painters,
famous for his brooding abstracts
of West Coast wilderness.

“It's too easy and romantic to
talk about the landscape,"’ he says.
“It's really the act of painting
(that’s important), and the Jand-
scape is just the starting point.”

Smith may not pay attention to
the details of the scenes around
him but their influence is obvious.
His images summon up the essence
of the dark, dank chaos of B.C.'s
forests, and yet the viewer can't
actually discern trees in his paint-

ings.
Smith experiments with colors
and brush = strokes, sometimes

allowing the paint to drip down the
canvas. Many of his colors are
dull, ‘‘mucky colors of rotting
vegetation,’’ he says. But the dirty
greens of dried- “up ferns are mixed
up with the crimsons of arbutus
trees and bright blucs of sky and
water,

Nearly 50 of Smith's latest
works, many. originating from his
visits to the Queen Charlotte
Islands, are currently on display at
the Vancouver Art Gallery, The
exhibition ends Jan. 10.

He has just begun working on a
19-foot mural for the new Cana-
dian embassy in Washington D.C.
The project was commissioned by
the External Affairs department
and must be completed by April.
“Ym using brighter colors on
this,’ he says, adding it too will
suggest a Canadian landscape.

Smith agrees that his work is
reminiscent of earlier giant Emily
Carr, ‘‘I think she was the first
modernist painter of this area. She
was an incredibly strong, gutsy
painter. I’m not taking it beyond

EGYPT, ¢.32 Be.

Contributing Writer

Emily Carr, but I'm using the sub-
ject in my way with similar col-
ors.''

Smith began his painting career
at the Winnipeg School of Art
under the direction of J... Fit-
zgerald, the last Group of Seven
member and a_ very precise
draughtsman, But precision was
not Smith's style.

“! draw fairly realistically, but |
gradually alter the image with
brushes and drips,"’ he says.

He moved to Vancouver and
studied abstraction under such
notables as Jack Shadbolt and
B.C. Binning. Then, in 1950, he
took an advanced painting class at
the California School of Fine Arts
in San Francisco and learned to
fuse his impressions of nature with
the art of painting.

“Pm not trying to make a pretty
picture,’’ he says. ‘I’m trying to
say something about the dying
forest and the young forest.”’

Harvard was his final stomping
ground as a student. He returned
to Vancouver and. became pro-
fessor at the University of B.C.
After 26 years there, in the art
department of the faculty of
education, the 78-year-old artist
retired and now paints every day.

But it is not easy. ‘‘I destroy a
lot. Hopefully PII get one out of
10 paintings.’'

That perseverance pays off,
though. His works grace halls in
New York, London and’ Ottawa,
and he is the recipient of ‘‘all kinds
of awards.’’

“It’s not really (impressive)
when you consider all the years it
took," he says.

Smith’s works are on display at
the Vancouver Art Gallery until
Jan. 10.

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HE CAN'T COME To DINVER AT EMERALD PARK.

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11 - Friday, January 8, 1988 - North Shore News

photo cubmitied by Jim Jardine

WEST VANCOUVER artist Gordon Smith pauses while working on one of his creations. Smith's paintings will

be on display at the Vancouver Art Gallery until Jan, 10.

Recorder workshop slated in HV

A RECORDER workshop tithed Tutti Flauti will be
held at Highlands United Church in North Vancouver
and led by accomplished Seattle conductor Peter
Seibert.

Hosted by the B.C. Recorder Society and the West
Coast Amateur Musicians Society, the workshop is
slated for Jan. 16 at the 3255 Edgemont Blvd. church.

Musicians are requested to bring their instruments
and music stands.

Participants can register in advance by calling
Joanne Sunahara at 224-0252.

The first Tutti Flauti recorder workshop was held in
April 1983 and was conducted by Mario Duschenes of
Montreal.

EVERY WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY

Avalon Hotel

1025 Marine Dr.
985-4181.