Colin Muir Dorward’s latest exhibition, “Some Paintings Enjoying Fresh Air,” looks outside for inspiration.
The landscapes hang on the walls of Carleton University Art Gallery, asking viewers to question the way they see their environment and the world they live in. Dorward said he drew inspiration from his daily life using irony, humour, and illogical connections.
“I think painting for me at least is really about making connections between the stuff that can’t otherwise be connected,” he said.
Dorward first garnered attention as a finalist in the 2013 RBC Canadian painting competition, but it was his imagination and philosophy towards life-like entities that truly brought people in.
“I’ve been interested in Colin’s work since I’ve seen it, previous to him applying to have the exhibition,” Heather Anderson, curator of the exhibition, said.
“He was sort of known, before this body of work, to play with composition which was really interesting.”
Dorward said his goal for this exhibition was to expand upon the audience responses to his work—in order to do this he needed to get out of his studio, and work under fresh light and air.
When curating the exhibit, Anderson said she focused on the linear architectural space, white walls and grey side walls to convey Colin’s message in a robust manner.
”I think he’s an artist who works really prolifically. He is someone who can pull that off. Not every artist can work a big shift as it is such an ambitious thing to embark on a new direction so late in his studies,” she said.
Dorward said he personified his paintings to address the mutual relationship between humans and nature.
“If we have a relationship with nature that means it also has one with us right? And if our relationship with nature is confused . . . there should be a parallel there. Sometimes nature should be doing goofy shit to us.”
Some of his paintings detailed Canadian sites like LeBreton and Victoria Island, and in some he integrated both landscapes and figures together to give it a context of sorts.
“I wanted to keep working with this personified landscape in its own landscape,” he said.
And while his paintings sometimes deal with abstract concepts and big questions, it seems they all come back to two ideas: connections and humour.
“I find that we laugh at things when there is a disconnect of understanding like something is funny when we don’t quite get it,” he said.
And he addresses the issues we are encountering with the environment everyday through nature-inspired colours—yellows, greens, blues—while his use of grey shows these aren’t the picturesque landscapes of the past.
In the end, he uses the tradition of landscape to further illustrate the irony of our current relationship with the environment.
“There is no reason why a landscape painting cannot be in a contemporary arts base and as figurative painting,” he said.
The exhibit Some Paintings Enjoying Fresh Air runs until Sept. 1.
