Opening on November 20th in the Alternator Member’s Gallery is TRIOS, DUETS. by Marguerite MacIntosh.
The exhibition title references chamber music which encompasses intimate relationships between instruments wherein each voice is enlivened through unity. In the same way, colours can be enhanced when in proximity with each other.
This series of work is, to a certain extent, a reflection of the artist’s interest in how we as humans in this time and space navigate our lives between certain dualities – harmony and dissonance, logic and intuition or experience, certainty and mystery, the past or future and the present moment. MacIntosh continues in her use of the square grid in these collages as a container for the arrangement of acrylic tiles.
The series began, in part, as an experiment in mixing colours and curiosity about how colours interact with one another. The colour diptychs and triptychs were selected with reference to the book A Dictionary of Color Combinations that is currently popular amongst designers. This book was published in 2010 based on a series of six books by Sanzo Wada originally published in Japan in the 1930’s. The current edition includes CMYK values, used in printing, for each of its 159 colours. The precision of the CMYK value contrasts with the imprecise act of mixing paint colours by hand. Paint was applied to mixed media paper using a soft rubber brayer in a single stroke. These painted strips were then cut into rectilinear tiles before being arranged within the square format. The often surprising serendipity of the mark-making sits within the symmetry of the grid. Line functions as structure, rhythm and containment while colour carries emotional weight.
Marguerite MacIntosh is a visual artist and retired architect, a wife, mother, and grandmother. Through her works in acrylic, pencil and mixed media she contemplates her experiences of time and place and her awareness of the present moment. She lives with her husband and their two dogs in Summerland, British Columbia.
