“Ron Shuebrook and Frances Thomas: In Conversation”

On an abnormally warm December day in quaint downtown Woodstock, Ontario, I find myself at the Woodstock Art Gallery to see “Ron Shuebrook and Frances Thomas: In Conversation.” Situated geographically between London and Hamilton, the gallery is a well-designed and thoughtfully programmed gem.

Gallery director and exhibition curator Mary Reid has brought together paintings created in the past 10 years by two senior Ontario artists. “In Conversation” is an unexpected pairing, considering that Ron Shuebrook (b. 1943) is so firmly established in the canon of contemporary Canadian painters and art educators, while Frances Thomas (b. 1949) is a late-blooming and dedicated outlier. Something that is not apparent in the exhibition, but is described by Reid in the exhibition catalogue, is the longstanding relationship she has had with both artists. Her familiarity with Thomas and Shuebrook over the decades brings considerable sensitivity to the pairing here.

The exhibition installation itself doesn’t quite invite conversation, though, presented as it is more like two contiguous solo shows side by side. Where there is conversation it is largely mediated by the viewer’s own active observations—creating a web of interconnection.

What strikes me first is a tension in temporality between the artists. Shuebrook’s work is the result of deliberate moves and time spent building up the pictorial space, which is then fixed, while Thomas paints at a brisker pace, at times a race to capture a fleeting moment, at others a softer lingering over marks that threaten to keep changing. While this is primarily a painting show, Reid included a selection of Shuebrook’s that are concise and intimate, unencumbered by colour or narrative. I would have liked to see how Thomas handles a graphic medium as well.

It is important to acknowledge that the formal language of abstraction does not escape the material realities of their makers. Neither does it dodge the prevailing impulses and influences from the artist’s formative education. Shuebrook’s practice is clearly grounded in the seriousness and confidence of modernism, while Thomas’s approach is shaped by postmodernism’s anxiety and distrust of absolutes.

There is something truly gorgeous in Thomas’s choice of colour and gestures. Some marks are bold, some colours are muddy, but there is a tenderness in the application, nonetheless. A number of works, like What I Know, are vibrantly colourful, and her use of black in Tipping Point, for example, feels like a block or warning, instructing the viewer not to look too long lest it overcomes you. In contrast, the lighter palette of a work like Orange Portal conveys a meditative calmness and joy. The paintings that Thomas makes in the larger format, as in Translation, are her strongest. They are more spacious, which gives her the room she clearly needs to express her intentions.

I am particularly drawn to Shuebrook’s smaller, more monochromatic work, and two larger paintings using the grid motif, Untitled (Red Irregular Grid) and Untitled (Yellow Irregular Grid). The subtlety in the grid paintings is inviting and my eye moves across the pattern of rectangles, noting their subtle differences. The work is sensitive, playful and delightfully unpredictable in its simplicity. Despite (or because of) a limiting structure, Shuebrook captures something of his state of mind, securing it in paint—akin to Thomas’s mark making.

Shuebrook’s pictorial paintings in the exhibition, created with specific references and meaning such as Requiem (for Rudy), are more restless Perhaps like Thomas’s darker work, the emotional content conveys an opacity of grief that makes looking such a demanding process.

Is abstract art relevant (Reid asks in her essay)? As much now as ever. Simply put, it is evidence of the creative process, of our humanness and lived experiences, which is no small thing in a time of AI and overwhelming global crises. ❚

“Ron Shuebrook and Frances Thomas: In Conversation” was exhibited at Woodstock Art Gallery, Woodstock, from October 21, 2023, to January 20, 2024.

Sandra Fraser is a recovering curator and burgeoning research analyst based in Utopia, Ontario.