Barbara McGivern's exhibition, "Conversations in Shape and Colour", at the Glenhyrst Art Gallery of Brant, is an opportunity to experience art that seems to transcend its medium.  McGivern uses colour, and the layering of colour, to create works that are more like constructions than paintings.

What I enjoy about McGivern's paintings, beyond immediate visual pleasure, is their smooth, unhesitating segue into the emotional.  They seem to be made of sensations.  McGivern builds this provocation into her art, one layer at a time, using varied shades and tones of the same colour. The resulting "structures" seem to crackle like fire; roil like clouds or explode into shards.  McGivern's colours are lush and vibrant--this is the way we want red to be.  Every painting is embellished with gold leaf ingots that topple across one landscape and seem embedded in another, like links in a chain.  One is naturally inclined to spend time with these paintings; to bask in them, singularly and collectively, for what they elicit and for how they incite.   

Barbara McGivern's work has been shown in England, Austria, Italy, France, Germany, United Arab Emirates and Switzerland, as well as in the United States and her native Canada.  The Audart Gallery in New York City exhibited a number of McGivern's paintings in its "TNT" exhibition.  We invite you to view this artist's official website and to contact her directly, should you wish to arrange a studio visit in Toronto. 

Audrey Regan

New York / Toronto

Barbara McGivern's Website

 

"Conversations in Shape and Colour"

was on view in February, 2004

at The Glenhyrst Art Gallery of Brant

20 Ava Road

Brantford, Ontario