Page 36 - Art-Addiction

BarBara McGIVerN

1955 born in toronto, ontario
lives and works in toronto, canada and london, uK

Barbara Mcgivern characteristically travels to regions endowed with vast open spaces, areas of desert
and the pampas. Mcgivern sets out to explore the inherent qualities of these natural voids. Back in her studio
Mcgivern evokes her feelings and memories from these travels. similar to the surrealist’s practices of auto-
matic writing she pre-empts her mental notes straight onto her canvasses without editing and flat-planning
them first. Landscapes, she says, become “brain-scapes”, and every brush stroke, from the most controlled
motions to spontaneous markings, unfold a scene of abstract qualities and a plethora of references which
serves as a backdrop for more dramatic narratives. Contrary to the more traditional representation of void
in art history like goya’s morbid, bizarre, and menacing canvasses, Mcgivern’s array of colors induces a
spin of post-modern parody and pastiche. edgy and opulent gold-leaf squares adorn Mcgivern’s canvases
where they become dense and clustered as they overlap, scratch, and bruise each other, bleeding the colors
of their backgrounds. The noise and bustling of these golden ‘beehives’ is reminiscent of an oriental bazaar
and they become like vibrant communities inhabiting various corners of her canvases. At the same time as
Mcgiven’s art acknowledges cultural history in the context of the landscape, the significance of the gold-leaf
squares questions the collapse of modernity as a cultural ethos.
nAdJA sALIHBegOVIC

32 ARTaddiction