[Historically] ... Except for one brief episode of ‘clarity’ in 1930’s [North]American social-realism, the success (i.e. critical-worth / celebratory-status) of urban-realist-painters has remained largely factitious. ... Like the most considerable urban-realist-artist of ‘that’-depression-era [ Edward Hopper] , David Hall’s city-works remain essentially unclassifiable.
In casual conversation, the soft-spoken Hall dropped the names of Manet, Goya, Velasquez, Turner, and (Richard Parkes) Bonnington, ... -- as much “appreciated” forefather-painters. However, no substantial, stylistic comparisons to these masters can be drawn in studying Hall’s “Shifting Ground”. ... [ Aside: numerous, sky-scape compositions, ‘in studio’ -- that is to say, works NOT selected for exhibition, at this time -- did demonstrate an affinity in subject matter with Turner and Bonnington] ... When pressed to identify more ‘relevant’ / recent inspirational sources, the artist named Hopper, California ‘Pop’-artist, Wayne Thiebaud (re: specifically, Thiebaud’s San Francisco, “big-hill”, landscapes), and Canadian, Group-of-Seven member, Frederick Varley.
.... With pause, and under scrutiny, various aspects of the aforementioned ‘sources’ did finally carom. Something of a sense of dislocation [read: Goya or Hopper], with the love for a buttery-pigment, soft-tensile line and lavish-stroke of surface [read: Manet or Thiebaud], and Varley’s ‘northern’ evocation of loneliness, merged and glanced on the face of Hall’s oeuvre. To be truthful to ‘period’- and subject- references -- nineteenth century ‘romantic’ landscape tradition, dirty-thirties- realism, California ‘Pop’, and good-old ‘Canadiana” (respectively) -- allusions could also be drawn to Whistler (in two ‘gems’ of a night-cast bridge, bluntly titled “Bridge#1”, and “Bridge#2”, both from 2006), to lesser-known, Isabel Bishop (--abscent her parade of foreground figures--, for a ‘30’s-type, realist ‘mood’ -- more sorrowful than indignant -- see: “Asylum”, 1996), to Ed Ruscha (for fascination with the complexity and prolification of 50’s and 60’s highways and byways -- view: “Pincer”, 2005) and to Canadian artists Légaré and/or Hébert (for empty, landscapes /cityscapes that abundantly collected and absorbed light -- visit: the ‘dry’-flattened passages of “Tower”, 2001, or “Meadowlands”, 2006).
At this point, ... this report ... (decidedly NOT a review)... begins to play happlessly like some Academy-award ‘thank-you-speech’ -- blog-blah --
[...] Returning to the near-present and [near] intent: Warren Flower’s Gallery Director, and exhibition curator, Giuseppe Di Leo, selected “Shifting Ground” works for their “broad-sweeping volumes of aerial view and space, ... imaginatively challenging the viewer to find a ‘safe’ place to land”. [... ] The artist declared himself “most successful when discovering a resolution between drawing and painting”. [...] One visitor saw Hall’s urban, architectural vistas so manifestly standardized as to become more a ‘sign’ than a bit of ‘reality’ ... they became icons of averageness -- put-downs of the dehumanization of the city-scene ? [...] At last, another departing guest thought “Shifting Grounds” -- with its’ binding thread of water and waterways snaking around and about -- to be a metaphor for a reality which flowed out of an exploration to (purely) ‘paint’.
T.L. Mtl 2007
[with thanks to Dawson College, community-commentary during the ‘hanging’]
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