Devon Pryce: Common Thread
Galerie Nicolas Robert, Toronto, is pleased to present Common Thread, an exhibition of the most recent paintings of Devon Pryce, his second with the gallery. Through dream-like, figurative tableaux of repeating self-portraiture, each painting is narratively ambiguous yet enigmatic in its specificity鈥攁 hybrid of fable and parable. Fable where plants, landscapes, forces of nature, inorganic human-made objects, clothing and architecture act as characters; and parable where the figures work with and against the outside world and themselves.
Through thin layers of deftly applied oil paint, the swirling colour and surfaces blend their figures into a formal and narrative conversation with their clothing and immediate surroundings. The figures are often seemingly conscious of the geometry of the painting's edge, and they constrain themselves to fit within the picture, pushing beyond at times into separate canvases, yet still manage to stay within their borders to express their suggestive energies. Muscle, limbs, hands and feet enlarge in scale beyond the real, emphasizing their bodies' interior conditions simultaneously with their surroundings, sharing stylistic similarities to numerous genres of painting histories.
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Galerie Nicolas Robert, Toronto, is pleased to present Common Thread, an exhibition of the most recent paintings of Devon Pryce, his second with the gallery. Through dream-like, figurative tableaux of repeating self-portraiture, each painting is narratively ambiguous yet enigmatic in its specificity鈥攁 hybrid of fable and parable. Fable where plants, landscapes, forces of nature, inorganic human-made objects, clothing and architecture act as characters; and parable where the figures work with and against the outside world and themselves.
Through thin layers of deftly applied oil paint, the swirling colour and surfaces blend their figures into a formal and narrative conversation with their clothing and immediate surroundings. The figures are often seemingly conscious of the geometry of the painting's edge, and they constrain themselves to fit within the picture, pushing beyond at times into separate canvases, yet still manage to stay within their borders to express their suggestive energies. Muscle, limbs, hands and feet enlarge in scale beyond the real, emphasizing their bodies' interior conditions simultaneously with their surroundings, sharing stylistic similarities to numerous genres of painting histories.
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