Brotherly Exposure

Bonnie Devine in the appreciation written for Daphne Odjig's 95th Birthday and included in the catalogue of the exhibition at Phillip Gevik's Gallery describes the painter's style:

Calligraphic, rhythmic in line, the forms emerge as if the artist's brush has never left the page but travelled in an unbroken movement across its face.

Devine notes that upon achieving this style, Odjig signs her birth name to her paintings. "She had found a compelling reason to paint and a profound source of inspiration. She began to sign her work with her birth name, Daphne Odjig."

One of my favourite pieces in the exhibition is a 1977 painting entitled The Brothers. Three smiling figures occupy the whole of the canvas. They look outward with big engaging smiles. And centred on each one is a stylized phallus built out of rippling waves echoing the ribbon of river that surrounds the three males. As a spectator one is captivated by the rhythmic joy of the moment. The painting reads as an exposure of benevolent power not only because of the presence of radiant smiles but also because the lines of the stylized phalluses cover the abdomens from the base of the perineum to the solar plexus thus depicting an expansive libidinal pleasure.

All this exuberance conveyed in acrylic on a 36" x 34" canvas. But with an artist's hand to see the forms emerge and an artist's eye to shape the dance of colour.

And so for day 1196
23.03.2010