Strange Borderlands

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Shawn Evans, “Economic Genesis,” 2018

oil on canvas, 78" x 57"

Shawn Evans’ dynamic oil paintings, on view at VivianeArt in Calgary through Feb. 16, are striking yet quietly subversive. Structured around his photographs of buildings, streets and landscapes, they play with perception, shifting deftly between abstraction and representation. The photographic elements act as a scaffold for Evans’ painterly tropes, offering glimpses of the urban landscape through fragmented and shifting points of view.

Evans builds his paintings, layer upon layer, creating strange borderlands between abstraction and representation, complete with narrative content. They read as photographic frames or even mirrors, playing with depth and surface, vastness and insularity, constraint and abandonment. His complex compositions offer engaging sensorial experiences through skilful manipulation of greys and vibrant colours, which are amplified by hard edges, negative space and clever layering of soft or blurry textures.

The paintings reveal an artist who has lived in many urban settings, including sprawling suburbs and the gritty inner city. Evans grew up in Regina, studied in Calgary at the Alberta College of Art and Design, and now calls Toronto home. In all cases, his strange yet familiar imagery portrays unpopulated urban settings memorialized through human signifiers such as buildings, graffiti or road signs.

The two largest paintings in the show are monumental in size and also in their tribute to the mundane characteristics of cities. In Economic Genesis, the viewer gazes both down to what looks like a city street that’s slick with rain, and up to a skyline fractured by two wide strokes of negative space that move downward. Although both strokes initially appear white, they evoke sunset by shifting subtly from orange to pink and then yellow, in contrast with the bright blue sky beneath. As in other paintings, there are multiple points of view and a strong push and pull between interacting and overlapping planes.

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Shawn Evans, “Secondary Fracture,” 2017

oil on canvas, 78" x 57"

This play on painterly and monumental tropes goes down a different road in Secondary Fracture, where the viewer is confronted by a close-up view of a dark green dumpster marked with a graffiti tag and drips of paint. It is buttressed between four other abstract planes that narrow or expand our view. The composition evokes a feeling of claustrophobia while also providing momentary release when we gaze toward a grey horizon.

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Shawn Evans, “Fallow History,” 2017

oil on canvas, 48" x 36"

Eleven other paintings range in height from one foot to four feet. Some include landscaped elements like trees and grass, while others feature street views or architecture. Fallow History, for instance, depicts a modern condominium rendered in greys, whites and blacks, with a subtle golden hue that pushes up to the sky. This geometric structure, while solid in mass and line, is also disintegrating into a maelstrom of abstract textures and shifting planes. In the foreground, a flat black form heightens the building’s fragility.

The beauty of these paintings rests in Evans’ uncanny ability to combine realism and abstraction into a poetic whole. The monumental and nostalgic feeling is rendered futile by surrounding or imposed elements. His work is as much about the mechanics of painting as evoking narratives of place and memory. ■

Shawn Evans' exhibition is on view at VivianeArt in Calgary from Jan. 11 to Feb. 16, 2019.