Gordon Rayner-Graham Peacock: Invention/Illusion

“Gordon Rayner (1935 – 2010) had an idiosyncratic way of making art, a style that is marked by constant innovation and change, and by the transformation of any medium he used. This quality is combined with an apparently endless series of startling juxtapositions in his work, also a colour sense that was often edgy, violent, and surprising — so surprising at times to create in the viewer new ideas of what colour can be.” – Joan Murray, Canadian art historian

“Illusion is a centuries old pictorial practice of making the subject look ‘realistic’ on a flat surface. From Rembrandt portraits to the apples of Cezanne, illusionistic tradition forms the basis of representational art today. Beginning with the Impressionists and the Fauves, the traditional illusion of realism was diminished… The Within the Frame series reestablishes the modelling and shading of traditional illusionistic space, but in abstraction.” – Graham Peacock