Paul deGroot

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Paul deGroot, “Andy with Pontiac,” 2018

oil on canvas, 36″ x 36″ (courtesy Herringer Kiss Gallery, Calgary)

Calgary artist Paul deGroot transforms mundane photographs into complex paintings with perceptual twists and ambiguous meanings. Rooted predominantly in the photorealist genre, they often contain surprising interplays between realism and abstraction, generally cast as opposing forces in modernism’s developmental narrative. DeGroot, however, seems intent on exploring the pictorial possibilities in the tension between them. Part One: Looking Back, at the Herringer Kiss Gallery in Calgary until Nov. 20, is his first solo exhibition. The works  span two decades, highlighting his evolution as an artist.

DeGroot's imagery is based on his photographs of different cities, including Calgary, Toronto, Bilbao and Rotterdam. He usually digitally manipulates everyday scenes of buildings, streets, vehicles and human figures before translating them into oil paintings marked by meticulously rendered imagery, interesting juxtapositions of flat planes of colour and unusual orientations within the picture plane.

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Paul deGroot, “12th Street Underpass at Night,” 2005

oil on canvas, 43″ x 64″ (courtesy Herringer Kiss Gallery, Calgary)

Photorealism, which emerged in the late 1960s, is recognized for its accuracy and precision in reproducing minute photographic details in paint. But deGroot uses an array of strategies to disrupt this style, reminding us that we are viewing a painting and not a photograph. A 2005 work, 12th Street Underpass at Night, presents a thoroughfare in Calgary’s inner city Inglewood neighbourhood. The perspective places the viewer at an unseen point on the sidewalk. The nearly deserted scene is rendered mostly in black, white and shades of grey, but is punctuated by a red stop sign. A shimmering pink sky seems to float above the underpass. The perceptual shift created by touches of colour is slight but effective.

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Paul deGroot, “Gilets Jaunes,” 2021

oil on canvas, 48″ x 48″ (courtesy Herringer Kiss Gallery, Calgary)

Graduation and Gilets Jaunes both feature crowds of people. One shows a university lecture hall, the other a crowd of yellow-vested protesters. In both paintings, the people seem blurry, as if viewed from a distance. As you approach, the figures disappear, becoming a field of abstracted colours and shapes. This clever perceptual shift is quietly disarming and makes the figures seem ghostly or phantasmagorical.

In other paintings, deGroot sets highly realistic elements, such as figures, statues, vehicles and buildings, within intense fields of colour. It should be noted that colour field painting was a major development in abstraction, allowing figure and ground to become a singular field and denying any suggestion of form or mass standing out against a background.

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Paul deGroot, “Red Building (Bilbao),” 2020

oil on canvas, 37.5″ x 31.5″ (courtesy Herringer Kiss Gallery, Calgary)

In Red Building (Bilbao), the viewer enters the painting through a field of green that emerges from flatness at the base of a building rendered meticulously in monochromatic reds. While the colour contrast is striking, the placement of the building and its neighbouring crosswalks transforms the green field into an illusionistic space. But as you move your eyes away from the building, the green brazenly drops into its flatness. It’s a perplexing dynamic.

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Paul deGroot, “Isolated Figure (1, 2, 3, 4),” 2021

oil on canvas, 36″ x 36″ each, installation view in “Part One: Looking Back” at Herringer Kiss Gallery, Calgary (courtesy the gallery)

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Paul deGroot, “Isolated Figure 4,” 2021

oil on canvas, 36″ x 36″ (courtesy Herringer Kiss Gallery, Calgary)

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The shift between flatness and space is further explored in Boys, Citroën, Andy with Pontiac and a series of four figurative paintings titled Isolated Figure 1 through Isolated Figure 4. In these latter paintings, each meticulously rendered person, based on photographs deGroot took during the pandemic, faces away from the viewer and is painted variously in monochromatic shades of red, blue, green or brown. Each figure is situated in a flat field of black paint and seems to be either contemplating or entering the darkness.

With 26 paintings in this show, there’s much to contemplate. The work is varied, engaging, beautifully rendered and, at times, wonderfully perplexing. ■  

Paul deGroot: Part One: Looking Back at the Herringer Kiss Gallery in Calgary from Oct. 23 to Nov. 20. 2021.

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