March 26th, 2009
I Heart… Geoff Butler
I went to the Geoff Butler exhibition at my university’s art gallery last weekend. Since we’re a relatively small university and our Art department is pretty much non existent (I had to ‘create’ my own course so that I could minor in Art; appalling, I know) the gallery only has a few exhibitions throughout the year which is kind of sad. I love going to art galleries and I find it’s always interesting to see a visual representation of what’s going on in others’ minds.
Take That!
Geoff Butler’s exhibition, Global Village, in a nutshell was a composite of brightly coloured paintings with a very fantasy-inspired approach to them – colours splashed across the canvases, a very pointillistic approach to the painting technique, spontaneous and seemingly random creatures and objects floating throughout space and orbiting oddly shaped planets. They were also very humourous poking fun the truths of the world. I really liked that dichotomy between what is real and what is make believe. It’s all too easy with the numerous crisies in this day and age (economical, political, environmental) to take things too seriously and want to frighten people in caring with bold statements about global destruction. And I think that Butler’s way of commenting on the state and possible future of our world is very refreshing. His way of taking global issues and turning them, rather comically, on their head is really quite evocative.
No cameras were allowed in the exhibit, but I found a few images on his website. They aren’t the best quality, but they give you a general idea. There’s also samples from his previous exhibits on the website as well (I particularly recommend Canuckiana, especially for my fellow Canadians – you’ll get a kick out of it.)
Unfortunately, my favourite piece from the exhibit wasn’t online.i But here are a few others I really enjoyed.
On the Ice
Tip of the Iceberg
Mush
Geosynchronicity
Camping Out
Overall, I really enjoyed Geoff Butler’s Global Village exhibition. I loved his satirical and fantastical approach to commenting on the potential future of our world. And I liked that while the exhibition had very strong cautionary untones, it still felt optimistic.
- There’s no way I’m going to do it justice by this description, but I’ll try: The majority of the canvas was a deep blue, almost black, and in the top right hand corner was the planet Earth shown from outer space. It looked exactly like a photograph, that’s how perfectly detailed it was. Around the Earth was a 3-D line drawing of white of a box which surrounded it. (»)
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Ally » 28 March 2009
Oh wow, very beautiful artwork. And I totally agree – extremely refreshing.
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Krissy replied on 28 March 2009...
I really wish the pictures were better quality. In real life the colours are much more vivid; they jump right off the canvas.
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