View Art Gallery
104-860 View Street
Victoria, BC V8W 3Z8
9 April – 8 May 2010
Whether we are transported to where “every known superstition in the world is gathered into the horseshoe of the Carpathians as if it were the centre of some sort of imaginative whirlpool...”[i] [Faith in Mythology- Nicolay ‘lay down’ and installation], or to the withstanding of whirlwind cycles, luckily miniaturized and accounted for within [Two Hundred and Seventy Tornados - Arajs], we are presented with a “Point of Reference”. At the View Gallery, Yuri Arajs and Christian Nicolay concurrently show individual viewpoints, implicitly referring to a personalized vocabulary of material, comportment and meaning. Deferential to found objects or materials, each artist yields to reclaimed matter, imbedding or challenging inference and allowing a departure of imagination to develop further. “Point of Reference” provides a summit to consider probing exploration and stimulate discovery.
Arajs deftly metamorphoses rusted metal and knotted wood into weathered vistas that direct us to reflect on artful landscaping. Surfaces smartly marked with scores, lithely applied paint, spots of pigment and layers of tempered stratum juxtapose with sheets of abrasion to recalibrate a presupposition that may occur with horizontal demarcation. Attrition through weathering becomes rue, an affecting territory. Encircling within atmospheres, cell-like features intensify horizons with insistent clarity. Cheerful dots speak, sometimes as monologue expositions [Untitled (Silver Moon) and Untitled (Island Landscape)], or vexing duet [Untitled (Point of Impact)], often gathering in chorusing clusters to adorn, enunciate the pictures’ voice as charming triggers [Untitled (red landscape)] and [Floral (#11), (#6), (#21) / Kirsu Koks1 & 2 (Cherry Tree 1 & 2)]. Alluring and mesmerizing, they conjure remote celestial bodies or plot floral accents that toy seriously. [Untitled (Kelowna)] references trenchant flurry, grounding and segregating the horizon of fire with gritty underpinning. Arajs consistently transforms unpretentious material through vociferous amalgamation, creating contemplative expanse.
Nicolay works with diachronic referencing, developing a visual linguistic through found, then engaged objects and imagery. Each work confidently reveals stories that encapsulate stages of idea deliberation and augmentation. He uses a medley of means to record his empirical processing, often building the descriptors over several years. Nicolay bluntly documents validation and justification within relationships, [I like cats, she’s the dog] and [Faith in Love], queries and thwarts trust and reliance [Faith in Money]. He questions the source of edification and acknowledges confused communication with ineffectual chalkboard erasers, their erasing function supplanted with chalk stalks and Chia growth / demise [Tower of Babel]. These works are conniving recounts of Nicolay’s quests, which wily commentate with commitment and spry enthusiasm.
[i] Stoker, Bram. “Dracula.” 1897. Free Public Domain E-Books from the Classic Literature Library
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