Quick — how many paintings are there in the image above?
At first glance you may see four, or is it five, if you include the canvas that encompasses the four “inner” works of art? Look closer, however, and you will realize that the number is higher still, as there are paintings within paintings, where artists draw other artists making art.
Welcome to Metapainting, the current exhibit by artist Phil Delisle that runs until May 19 at the ByWard Market Gallery of the Ottawa School of Art.
A Fixed State of Irresolution (detail) by Phil Delisle (2010)
A graduate of the University of Waterloo, as well as the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Delisle explores the process of creating art. Many of his pieces contain images of painters painting, or as in my favourite work in the exhibit A Fixed State of Irresolution (a diptych, or work comprised of two separate paintings), the exploration of how an image can simultaneously be a standalone piece and also part of another painting.
If you look at the painting to the left, you will see an interesting abstract image. This work is located immediately beside a second painting (below), in which a painter is working in his studio. If you pay careful attention, you will see that the abstract painting has been replicated inside the artist’s studio.
A Fixed State of Irresolution (detail) by Phil Delisle (2010)
On the top left hand corner of this second work, you can see the abstract painting amidst several white canvasses. As the artist begins working on another piece, the viewer can observe the abstract painting in “miniature”, which has been “transported” from the larger standalone piece that lies right next to it on the wall.
In a phone interview, I ask Delisle where he gets his inspiration to focus on process. “This touches on what I am interested in literature,” he replies. “That a fragmented work can be more interesting.”Delisle tells me that he draws inspiration from such novelists as William S. Burroughs, the late U.S. writer who promoted the cut-up technique, in which a fully linear text is cut up into pieces and then reassembled.
He also admires the work of the world-renowned Argentinian short story writer Jorge Luis Borges. “In Borges, he has a story of a Don Quixote that is more beautiful,” says Delisle. “[It’s about] a man who spends all his life rewriting [Don Quixote] and never finishing it.”
This Borges anecdote is telling, for it touches on a central part of Delisle’s painting style – namely, that the process of making art can be just as beautiful as the finished product. To borrow the name from one of Delisle’s work’s, a fixed state of irresolution can sometimes be more interesting that a definitive answer.
Metapainting runs until May 19 at the Byward Market Gallery of the Ottawa School of Art (35 George Street). Admission is free.
