Untitled (Prairie Pond) acrylic on canvas 48 x 72 in.  2001 Framed SOLD

Biography

Brent McIntosh's vibrant use of colour and energetic mark making, which from a distance coalesce into a highly naturalistic realism, dissolve upon closer viewing into an abstract tapestry of daubs, slashes, and spatters. His process produces images that are both organic yet controlled, paintings that present a remarkable conflict between description and dissolution within the same canvas. McIntosh uses a wide array of pigments to achieve this balancing act, utilizing the tension between representation and abstraction as a means of accurately reproducing personal encounters with nature. He is concerned not with mere appearance, but with raw impressions that do not always manifest visually. The artist attempts to render in paint that which is not seen, but felt; he has found that the activity of piecing together a coherent image from his incongruent strokes captures some essence of the natural landscape itself.

McIntosh credits his grandfather, a commercial artist who painted oil landscapes in his free time, with germinating his love of painting. Echoes of Impressionism, Pointillism, Abstract Expressionism, and the Group of Seven are all present, but it is McIntosh’s passion for eighteenth and nineteenth century botanical prints which perhaps underlies the labour intensive, almost obsessive working of the canvas surface. His dynamic paint application, a seemingly erratic performance with palette knives, belies the diligent focus required to fuse disparate elements and render the landscape legible. The result is an independent abstract composition that breathes through a representational framework. Observing the final work is a stimulating experience, one that is enriched as the complex relationships between marks, pigments and rhythms are revealed over time.

Brent McIntosh was born in 1959 in Montreal, Quebec. He earned both his BFA and his MFA at York University, Toronto in 1982 and in 1984. He works with commercial galleries in seven major cities throughout North America and Europe, and is represented in numerous corporate and private collections, including the Conference Board of Canada, the Bank of Montreal, TD Bank, and the Royal Bank of Canada. Public institutions, most notably the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Art Gallery of Alberta, also have acquired his paintings.

Source: J. Cacciola Gallery, New Yory, NY USA

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