Trench Contemporary Art is pleased to present works by Ron Stonier in an exhibition titled 1964, which will run from March 8 – April 7, 2012. Stonier is a graduate of the Vancouver School of Art (now Emily Carr University of Art + Design), where he also taught painting from 1962 – 1978.
The public is invited to attend the opening reception on March 8, 2012 from 6 – 9pm. Trench Contemporary Art is located at 102 -148 Alexander Street, Vancouver, BC, between Columbia and Main Streets. Call 604-681-2577 for more information or follow the gallery here on Facebook.
In 1964, Ron Stonier was a young painter on the move. Vancouver was buzzing with new and important influences in the arts. Canadian abstract artist Roy Kiyooka had arrived on the scene and became a colleague at the Vancouver School of Art. Post Painterly Abstraction and Hard Edge were emerging as the dominant forces in painting. Pop Art was on the horizon, the Beatles played the Empire Stadium and Oscar Peterson released his Canadiana Suite. The future was bright.
It is against this historic backdrop that Trench Contemporary Art launches its first in depth look into a specific period of Vancouver Painter Ron Stonier’s artistic legacy. Consisting of 12-16 small works on panel (never before exhibited) and 5 larger canvases, this exhibition examines Stonier’s progress as the young artist moved away from abstract expressionism toward his post painterly works of the mid to late 1960’s.
Working in this smaller format, Stonier executed ideas quickly and easily, exploring composition, colour, structure, line and form in a fearless and inventive manner. Clearly starting to break free from the influences of his former instructors (Jarvis, Shadbolt, Bobak, Smith and Aspel) the works of 1964 demonstrate his growing confidence with paint especially in his use of colour and composition. While never approaching the landscape directly or in such a conventional way as to present a horizon line, it could be argued that this body of work is the closest Stonier every came to representing the mystic landscape of the West Coast. Here, Stoniers saturated colour is mellowed by its close association with complimentary earth tones, greens and greys thus evoking a sense of a spiritual or inner perspective of the landscape rather than that of the more conventional external and epic one so often found in Canadian painting.
Ron Stonier continued to paint through the 1960’s right up until his untimely death in 2001.
For more information and print sized images, contact Craig Sibley 604-681-2577 or by email: info@trenchgallery
