PHOTO: COURTESY THE GALLERY
Tim Gardner
2 Men with Moon, 2015
Watercolour on paper
12.125” x 16”
Tim Gardner
Canadian painting has a long history of landscape as
muse. Tim Gardner’s accomplished and detailed watercolours add a human element. His landscapes — snow and
rock above the tree line, an indigo sky over a metropolis,
a mountain lake under starlight — contain figures deep
in contemplation, companionship or hijinks. Young men
in sneakers snap up the view on cell phones — or are
they taking selfies? A motorcyclist pauses in a sublime
wash of moonlight. A shirtless, beaming hiker performs a
headstand against hanging glaciers and barren cliffs, his
heavy boots treading lightly on the clouds. Gardner’s settings underscore human experience.
Monte Clark Gallery
105 - 525 Great Northern Way. 604-730-5000
monteclarkgallery.com
PHOTO: COURTESY THE GALLERY
Erin McSavaney
Erin McSavaney
Chimera, 2016
Acrylic on canvas
54” x 48”
62
E SS E N T I A L VA N CO U V ER 20 16 / 1 7
Trained in graphic design and illustration, Erin
McSavaney presents mundane urban vegetation with
humour and pathos. His sun-washed trees and bushes are
always in a context of fences, parking lots and retaining
walls — nature and culture as fraught bedfellows. Fences
are made of battered wood or anonymous concrete. The
trees do their best: one assumes Godzilla-like proportions, an inverted U over a cowering gate. Another tree’s
branches loom over a retaining wall casting stealthy and
possessive shadows. A small shrub seems innocent but is
poised, perhaps to crack the concrete. The crowns of lush
trees appear behind a high fence alongside a diminutive
triangle of a roof. Is there a scuffle pending?
Equinox Gallery
525 Great Northern Way. 604-736-2405
equinoxgallery.com