joseph scissorhands: Sky Glabush: The Arrangement of Stars

Sky Glabush - Gash gold-vermillion, 2023 (detail).

I paid a visit to the Stephen Friedman Gallery to see the work of the wonderfully named Canadian artist Sky Glabush. As luck would have it on the morning of my visit the artist himself was there giving a talk about his work and then hosting a Q and A session (last pictures below). It was a great opportunity to listen and learn more about his work which is largely figurative and organic, but also contains elements of geometric abstraction, and influences which include Harald Sohlberg, Edvard Munch and Arthur Dove. The artist also explained his working process which involves mixing sand into oil paint to create surface texture and depth. Much of Glabush's process appeared to involve elements of trial and error as he second guessed and doubted himself, scraping off layers of paint and sand then adding turpentine etc. and applying alternative colours in oil before finding solutions to bring the paintings to their conclusion. Self-doubt and the occasional seeking of second opinions are problematic to all creatives I guess. It was a refreshingly honest and funny talk and one I felt fortunate to have happened upon. The title of the exhibition - The Arrangement of Stars - is taken from a Ted Hughes poem and similarly Glabush's paintings to my eye appeared to have a sense of contemplative spirituality and the romantic about them being concerned with the sun, stars and the land. There appeared to be an acknowledgement of something or experiences greater than or beyond ourselves. The paintings also appeared to have a mid-century aesthetic to them and could I felt have sat easily within the company of paintings by Glabush's artistic heroes. The sense of the works chiming with those created in an earlier time frame was also felt in the use of muted but intense colour combinations and the geometric shapes employed in the foliage of the floral pieces. One, Flowers at the North Sea, resembled a tapestry with its muted colours and horizontal lines. Less successful I thought were the portraits by Glabush, so I have only included the one that I thought worked best.