Gary Michael Dault

For Toronto-based critic, writer/poet and visual artist Gary Michael Dault, purity, simplicity and efficiency seem paramount to anything else. This is both a practical consideration in response to a busy schedule, and also a conscious, aesthetic decision arrived at as a result of years of creative output. Presumably in writing, particularly in poetry, the goal is to get the most from the least. Dault uses this ethic to create a series of small acrylic landscape paintings on cardboard cereal box covers that are situated somewhere between a lush imagination, a healthy cynicism and the heart of the Canadian outdoor experience. The exhibition, entitled “60 Minutes of Painting,” was on display at the Christina Parker Gallery in St. John’s, Newfoundland, in June and July of this year.

Entering the clean white room in the back third of the gallery, I was struck by the body of work as a whole. The paintings were arranged side by side, quite close together, encircling the entire space, flat to the wall. It’s as if these were frames taken from a celluloid film highlighting the good old days of the Canadian outdoors. But there is nothing archaic or nostalgic about the works. Quite to the contrary, they are refreshingly new and alive. Up close, you begin to take in the full detail and expressiveness of their brushwork and rich colour palette. Coupled with the fact that they are all painted artlessly on roughly cut-out cereal and cracker box covers, you can see that the artist paints, not as an effort to depict a romantic, noble north, but for pure pleasure and playful exploration.

It’s not often that you see a solo exhibition created in its entirety in 60 minutes. I’ve never seen it done, nor would I necessarily recommend it, but this one worked. This is a series of 60 pieces, each one painted in the space of a one-minute time frame. Simple landscapes, most involving some sort of rock face or outcropping, sky and water. Similar, perhaps, at first glance, to the work of the “Hot Mush School” of landscape painting, as the Group of Seven were known (by their detractors). They ooze fluidity and have an incredible ability to suggest, by the simplest of means, rich atmospheric effect. These works differ, however, in that none of these scapes are actual places. They come from the imagination. Portions of all the works allow for the cereal box imagery to show through, creating ready-made landforms. There is an uncanny ability in many for the toasted golden flakes or chewy granola bars to emanate the same warmth and glow experienced in that final few minutes of sundown when all around you is bathed in rich, warm light. That’s the time when everything is alright. But something else is at play here. Upon closer reading, you discover phrases like “Masters Choice” or “Nothing Artificial”—snippets of text from the name brands or marketing slogans left uncovered or only modestly obscured by paint. These simple words take us to a darker place.

We are consumers by nature; there is not much left on the planet that has not been commodified in some way or another. It is depressing, but is omnipresent, crass commercialization the cynical undercurrent in this body of work? Dault acknowledges in the coda of his artist statement that “the very rapidity of their execution provides them with a crude procedural analogy to assembly-lineage and, viewed from that angle, my abject little paintings on cardboard are themselves suddenly emblems of commodification.” This is true and, indeed, they could be read that way. He goes on to state that his landscapes may be “a send up of, a gloss on, a critique of the landscape as a detachable and packaged consumable object.” But it is clear these concerns are secondary to the primary act and process of simply creating. They began many years ago as Dault waited for his young son to come down for breakfast in the mornings. “The idea of painting on the boxes came out of the need to implement those hovering, hitherto unemployed shards of downtime.” He noticed that the images on the boxes of Corn Flakes or Muslix or Crispix could be seen to be vaguely landscape-like. With the addition of a little paint, the landscapes would come alive, almost creating themselves.

In the end, it is clear this show is less about some sweaty, conceptual, didactic musing and more a playful comment on the reality of the contemporary Canadian outdoor experience that most of us hold dear to our hearts. There is an inherent joy evident in the brushwork and simplicity of these paintings, a kind of exuberance that restores faith in genuine individuality and flies in the face of the monotony of mass production and the market-driven world. I came away from this exhibition optimistic that a little imagination can still trump our consumer model for happiness. ■

Gary Michael Dault’s “60 Minutes of Painting” was exhibited at Christina Parker Gallery, in St. John’s, Newfoundland, from June 21 to July 12, 2007.

Will Gill is a sculptor and painter based in St. John’s, Newfoundland.