Doris McCarthy, 1968, oil on canvas, 24″ x 30″

With the arrival this fall, in our S27 studio at 401 Richmond, of one of the iconic McCarthy abstract paintings, Banner #2, 1968, we brought out the equally dynamic and seminal Greg Curnoe work, America. McCarthy’s painting maps passages of pure colour, her summer studio place on the shores of Georgian Bay, the patches of mosses, grasses and pools of water in the jagged rocks. Curnoe looks at the larger terrain of North America, redesigning it, also with glorious colour passages, to his own liking. And with these two artists we looked further to Jaan Poldaas’ colour collage, Twelve Colour Pair Study 2, “a constant struggle of will and law” as described by Roald Nasgaard in his book, Abstract Art in Canada.

A triumvirate of sorts – a revelation of colour and place and of placing.

Greg Curnoe, 1989, 21 colour lithograph, 27″ x 20″

Jaan Poldaas, 1996, collage, 9″ x 15″