Joseph Kyle

Hard edge? Op Art? These abstractions strike a chord.

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Joseph Kyle: The Soul of an Artist, on view at Vancouver’s Paul Kyle Gallery until May 6, is both a painting show and a tribute. A mini-retrospective for Kyle, curated by his son, Paul, it includes 24 abstracts from the mid-1970s through to the artist’s death in 2005.

“He was brilliant, a true Renaissance man,” says Paul, who also remembers his father as studious, curious and disciplined. 

Kyle was born in Belfast in 1923 and grew up in Saskatoon. He wrote poetry as a boy and, at one point, attempted to read the entire contents of the Saskatoon library. “He got as far as ‘C,’” says Paul. 

In the 1960s, he was involved with Intermedia, a Vancouver film, video and photography co-operative, and then became the first director of the Victoria College of Art, spending 25 years in that role. He started painting later in life, inspired by a love of music that had led him to study musical composition at Montreal’s McGill University.

“The word symphony literally means the bringing together of sound and form, and my father does that in painting with colour and form,” Paul says.

At first glance, the show at the Paul Kyle Gallery, formerly Elan Fine Art, looks like a collection of hard-edge paintings reminiscent of American artists Ellsworth Kelly, Gene Davis or Kenneth Noland. But Kyle never considered himself a hard-edge painter. And while his paintings may play with depth perception, they’re not Op Art either. 

Compared to his 1960’s peer, the Hungarian-French artist Victor Vasarely, or today’s illusionists, people like Venezuela’s Jose Margulis or Canadian artist Bradley Harms, who use tightly packed repetitive patterns to trick the eye, Kyle’s paintings appear flat. The illusion of depth comes only with intense viewing. 

“They’re not conceptual,” says Paul. “They’re experiential.”

He directs my attention to Entelechy Series II #42, a muted piece in yellows and blues as an example of synoptics, a word that refers to the making of a synopsis, which his father borrowed to describe his artistic process.

“Allow your eyes to go limp, let your peripheral take over and you’ll see the shifting that starts to take place. You’ll see the edges start to fade, disappear and go into each other. If one is open to it, they just change and change. It’s an amazing experience, just like a piece of music can be.”

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Joseph Kyle, “Ludus Coloris Series IV #5,” 1989

Joseph Kyle, “Ludus Coloris Series IV #5,” 1989

acrylic on canvas, 72" x 48" (courtesy Paul Kyle Gallery, Vancouver, photo by Kyle Juron)

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Joseph Kyle, “Gaia #7,” 1997

Joseph Kyle, “Gaia #7,” 1997

acrylic on canvas, 72" x 60" (courtesy Paul Kyle Gallery, Vancouver, photo by Kyle Juron)

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Joseph Kyle, “Synoptica #9,” 2002

Joseph Kyle, “Synoptica #9,” 2002

acrylic on canvas, 54" x 66" (courtesy Paul Kyle Gallery, Vancouver, photo by Kyle Juron)

Other paintings elicit a more immediate response. Ludus Coloris Series IV #3, from 1989, is smash-mouth exuberant, bold and unapologetic. Gaia #7, painted eight years later, is more refined but just as busy. The eye is drawn to multiple planes. Synoptica #9, from 2002, is a dense painting within a painting, chaotic yet harmonious in its balance. Harmony and cohesion, two tenets of musical composition, were important to Kyle.

Paul says another element is also at play – spirituality. His father was a devotee of the Indian philosopher Sri Aurobindo, who believed that life, mind and body must surrender to a higher consciousness. 

“That was my father’s aspiration – to give the viewer an opportunity to have the inner eye opened, to awaken a reminder of that place, you know, that is connected to God.” 

Visitors can determine for themselves whether Kyle succeeded in imbuing his paintings with a divine spirit. For me, the endeavour is best realized in one of his later paintings, Radiance Diptych, where a shaft of luminance appears to cascade from the top of the painting straight down the middle to the bottom. It represents, says Paul, everything his father believed in and serves as “a reminder of who and what we are spiritually.” ■

Joseph Kyle: The Soul of an Artist at the Paul Kyle Gallery in Vancouver from Feb. 25 to May 6, 2023.

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Paul Kyle Gallery (formerly Elan Fine Art)

4-258 East 1 Avenue (Second floor), Vancouver, British Columbia V5T 1A6

604-620-0049

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