Sky Glabush: The Structure of Painting

Philip Martin Gallery is proud to present an exhibition of new works on paper by Sky Glabush. The highly anticipated on-line presentation is the first at the gallery by the Ontario-based artist.

Sky Glabush's work takes on portraiture, landscape, architecture, and still life. Flowers, trees, buildings and individual portrait sitters are rendered in vivid color, strong line, and dynamic shape. Built up in layers, Glabush's works on paper are rendered in pencil, gouache and watercolor. His recent paintings include passages in oil and sand that play off brilliant areas of translucent color laid down with a brush.

Glabush's paintings connect directly to our experience of personal vision in painting. The power of the human hand, a sense of mental recording and visual improvisation is paramount as we consider his work. And, at the same time, we witness a unique sense of painting, one formed by Glabush's own experiences living and working in variety of places such as Saskatchewan, Belize, California and Amsterdam. 

Glabush says, "These new paintings use the structure and motif of 'landscape' in the same way I might use the structure of a face, or a flower. Structure as a kind of archetype - a kind of architecture. My paintings are very much rooted in painterly language or history, but I come at it in my own way. This emerged through my own working, and in trying to let go of certain ways of working. It took me twenty years of working to get to that stage where I could let go of the scaffolding of an image, and work in an open way."

Sky Glabush (b. 1970, lives London, Ontario) received his BFA from the University of Saskatchewan (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada), and his MA from the University of Alberta (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada). Glabush’s work is currently included in “Brathwaite, Cheng, Coulis, Cowan, Dodge, Dove, Glabush, Huckaby, Jorden, Luck, O’Neill, Petit-Frère” at Philip Martin Gallery (Los Angeles, CA), and was recently featured in solo exhibitions “The Valley of Love” at Clint Roenisch Gallery (Toronto, Ontario); “Sky Glabush” at Projet Pangee (Montreal, Quebec); and “The Window is Also a Door” at Prosjektrom Normanns (Stavanger, Norway). His work has been included in exhibitions at the Univeristy of Western Ontario (Ontario, Canada); Museum London (London, Ontario); Galerie de l’UQAM (Montréal, Quebec); and Rideau Hall (Ottowa, Canada). Glabush is an associate professor of visual art at the University of Western Ontario. Glabush’s work is included in such collections as National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa, Ontario); Museum/London (London, Ontario); Alberta Foundation for the Arts (Calgary, Alberta); and University of Saskatchewan (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan). His work has been featured in publications such as “White Hot Magazine,” “Canadian Art,” and “Border Crossing.” Glabush lives and works in London, Ontario, Canada.