ALEX COLVILLE at the Art Gallery of Ontario (317 Dundas West), to January 4, 2015. $25, srs $21.50, stu $16.50, Wednesday after 6 pm $12.50. 416-979-6648, ago.net. Rating: NNNN
The AGO honours Alex Colville, who died in 2013 at 92, with a dazzling overview of his work. More than 100 works, including sketchbooks, biographical vignettes and studies, chart his evolution from young World War II military artist to revered chronicler of modern anxiety in everyday life.
Painting his small-town surroundings in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Colville excelled at an impeccable realism that teeters on the edge of the uncanny. His scenes, many including his wife and lifelong muse, Rhoda, involve daily activities: driving, walking through town, bathing, cycling, skating and boating, brushing a dog or simply pausing at a window to reflect.
Seen as a whole, Colville’s work becomes easier to contextualize. His penchant for precision coupled with a faint unease has a whiff of Hitchcock, while his focus on the metaphysical aspects of the everyday brings the modern short story to mind.
The work resonates with a profound uncertainty. As much as Colville focuses on his deep love for his wife, his town and his dogs, things never seem settled. His figures, as perfectly rendered as they are, don’t quite touch the ground, and death never seems very far off. As one of the first soldiers to liberate Bergen-Belsen, Colville’s unease in the world was understandable.
Yet it’s counterbalanced by great care and meticulous detail. A study for his haunting painting Church And Horse (an evocation of JFK’s funeral) shows the horse subdivided into a three-dimensional grid, with precise measurements neatly noted from nose to fetlock.
This is a generous and comprehensive survey of his work, a life depicted with painstaking and masterful restraint.
art@nowtoronto.com
