W I L D B R A I D
Robert McLaughlin Gallery - RBC Emerging Artist Residency Program
25 September - 20 October 2019
Wild Braid was developed by the artist during his time in the Artist Incubator Lab, which is generously sponsored by the RBC Foundation Emerging Artist Project. This space provides artists with an opportunity to experiment, innovate, and grow their artistic practice.
In his poem “Snakes of September,” Stanley Kunitz writes of the delight and wonder that characterizes an encounter with “the wild braid of creation.” Tucked within the familiar faces of routine and the hurried habits of everyday life, chance meetings of all kinds catch us by surprise and force us to accommodate or contend with new information. Such moments reveal and encourage connection - with ourselves, one another, and the environments in which we live.
The natural environment has featured prominently in Brian Hoad’s life. As a printmaker and painter, he draws from his memories and experience in outdoor spaces as well as his evolving relationship to place for inspiration. With an increasing interest in family history and abstraction, the artist savours moments of meaningful encounter in his work and prioritizes mark-making in direct, encompassing compositions. In Wild Braid, Hoad pulls his subject matter into the immediacy of the foreground and invites viewers to relate to and interact with his painted surfaces on their own terms. Indeed, he creates unavoidable encounters for the viewer, expanding the siding of a cabin and the corners of a log cabin quilt to the near full extent of his large canvases.
Hannah Keating, Robert McLaughlin Gallery
Gallery Images courtesy of Ingrid Forster, Robert McLaughlin Gallery.
Documentation by David Simon at Sandbox Photovideo.