Sky Glabush

Five years ago I visited Sky Glabush’s studio in London, Ontario. He occupies himself in a utilitarian, industrial-services zone—notably devoid of artist neighbours; notably distant from the tranquil bungalow drives in which he had recently staked his realist painting bona fides. In 2011, Glabush was coaxing along a pursuit of rugged, ungainly and highly intuitive non-objectivity, blazing a trail that has led him onward since. A homely clump of objects—an inverted laundry sink, a sack of plaster, a slab of clay, a split of firewood (I’m sort of making this up now, it was all that unpromising!)—at the centre of the studio persistently distracted Glabush’s attention, in a flummoxing sort of way. At a loss for words, we pondered it together quietly. It had been there for a while, clearly not a still-life tableau, but what? Today, on his website are numerous studio views, an ongoing log kept of processes, initiatives and collateral formations, a few of which particularly transport me back to that afternoon.

The most recent entries to Glabush’s studio slide show are shots taken during the preparation of “What Is a Self?” It is worth looking at these in conjunction with Oakville Galleries’s digital archive to get a fuller sense of this exceptionally detailed and nuanced exhibition (beyond the capacity of 1000 words to do justice), loaded with sensitivity both for the artworks’ object autonomy and their adjustments to and of the gallery site. Glabush’s assemblage impulse has fledged into sculpture. And tapestry too, for he introduces a new technique into his repertoire—weaving. Glabush has long indicated touchstones in his practice. Here they include the Constructivism of Pablo Picasso and Kurt Schwitters, the guileless abstractions of Paul Klee and Agnes Martin (like Martin, Glabush has roots in Saskatchewan), and the fiercer material Naturalism of Sol LeWitt. All of which obscures the question posed upfront in the exhibition title. We take it on faith that contemplations of artistic precedent intertwine with personal stocktaking in Glabush’s identity. Indeed, the issue of being an artist (versus pretender) may have so predominated that only slowly has it become porous to the rest of his life.

Glabush genuinely seeks something about his self in the domestic floor plate of the cottage-cum-gallery and arranges the works in four distinct room-by-room set pieces. In order of the checklist map—although unlikely the sequence that one actually engages with the exhibition—let us start at the North Gallery, a cozy salon with a residual hearth. Above the fireplace mantle, somewhat an extension of its fluting and trim, hangs Relief, a wooden, gessoed mask, heavy of brow, bridge and cheekbone, reminiscent of Archipenko or, more literally, ripped from the face of either of the two right-hand figures of Desmoiselles d’Avignon. This is a bold, blatant and bewildering opening move. Featureless, perfectly impassive, its aura presides over the room, paterfamilias. Also on the perimeter, draped in front of a window, hangs Blinds, one of several fabric pieces in the show. Its semaphore-flag curtains similarly suffuse the atmosphere through a loose-wove black-and-white theme with grace-notes of colour, admitting pale winter light. In a central row are four blocky sculptures, each made out of a cheap kitchen chair and oriented to a different compass point, as if in disagreement. They have been bestowed more intriguing names than the aforementioned works—Step, Fountain, Occupied, Entertainment—falling short on identity yet suggestive of attitudes. Newly bulked masses of surplus material almost completely outweigh evidence of former use. Glabush methodically disarticulates the bodily receptiveness of each chair, only retaining their gently splayed legs to delimit their bases. In Fountain, for instance, the accommodating sway of seat and back has been eccentrically neutralized by stacked boxes and shims to arrive at a perfectly level and squared top shelf that displays a crudely chiselled, head-sized pod. Its siblings are ornamented with comparable ceramic or fabric-wrapped accessories. Their integrated figure-and-base ambiguities suggest Constantin Brâncus¸i, à la Exotic Plant.

By contrast, the Central Gallery streams in the unfiltered, low-angle sunlight from Lake Ontario, which activates the low-key chromatics of three wall-mounted wove works. Local Colour and Completion both have bleached, tea-towel palettes, pulled tautly but not tightly over wooden stretchers. The openness of their weaving directs attention to the meandering thread lines within monolithic geometries. Completion sports a central rectangle of spackled sand, converting the hand-woven fabric into support, as if canvas. endlessummer, unstretched, with fringed top and bottom edges, is most radiantly autobiographical, a stack of sunset reveries emblazoned on the memory of an erstwhile surfer. The major piece in the gallery, perhaps of the entire exhibition, is the large assemblage Euclid, enthroned atop a substantial concrete block (that partially encases and contorts a smaller foam block). Despite its name, likely reference to the next layer up of the throne, armoured in a white ceramic-tile grid, Euclid has a maternal bearing, a stout Victoria, with the switch-hipped sitting position favoured by Henry Moore. Does self co-identify with spouse or family?

The South Gallery displays a stern tapestry titled Workshop. Its dark, Masonic-pyramid motif alludes to the divine geometrical designs of Bahá’í (Glabush’s faith). This talisman faces a spry furniture/sculpture hybrid, Storage Unit, a cabinet of handmade curiosities (emanations of the mind and spirit rather than discoveries of the natural world). Ideas and notions, upon incubation, also need nursery, habitat and sanctuary. Secreted within Storage Unit’s warren of shelves and compartments are various unfired clay vessels, folded cloths, wooden boxes and models. Each holds its own space, apart from and oblivious to its neighbours. The cabinet has the stature of a custodian or parent. It also behaves as a dollhouse, in whose chambers can be found features of and references to other works in the exhibition.

In the fourth and final Salah Bachir Room, the smallest, a hermit’s cell by comparison, hangs a pictorial relief, akin to a relic, exhumation or fossil. Ironically titled Absolute Dating, its shallow plaster tray congeals unattributable remains around the impression of a corrugated-cardboard rectangle. Like a box-grid from an archeological dig, it could well be lifted from the future excavation of Glabush’s studio. It is opposite Plan, a modular sheet-metal desk immobilized in concrete. Plan shows features of work or study (something like a blotter and an inbox) but lacks indications of use. It is noble in its inactivity. Along a nearby window ledge are the final works executed for “What Is a Self?”Heads, three rapid oil “portraits” on pre- fabricated 14 x 11-inch canvases. Each unique, yet basically the same—identical in scale and composition, inscrutable, they yield virtually nothing in the way of subjectivity or expression. Implicitly they are Glabush, but essentially unrecognizable. They just might be the blank faces masked behind Relief, at the exhibition’s beginning. Ultimately, Glabush does not relinquish his objective, skeptical biases. Knowing a self proves even more difficult than acknowledging the self.❚

“Sky Glabush: What Is a Self?” was exhibited at Oakville Galleries, Oakville, from January 17 to March 13, 2016.

Ben Portis is a curator living in Toronto.