Sold for: $67,250

PROVENANCE
Bau-Xi Gallery, Vancouver
Collection of DuPont Canada, Ontario

LITERATURE
Scott Watson, Jack Shadbolt, 1990, page 204

“What I am thinking of is a form which would seem to indicate the very live organic process, not imposed from the outside by the artist through stylization but in which nature itself seems to be yearning to reveal itself as reaching from an inchoate state toward a declaration of abstract structure.”

- Jack Shadbolt

In the 1980s the influential West Coast modernist Jack Shadbolt was developing his butterfly paintings – a theme which became sought after by collectors. In this 1984 canvas, Shadbolt depicted chrysalises, a caterpillar or butterfly body, and a colourful wing floating separately in space, their abstracted forms representing the process of transformation from one state to another. This mysterious evolution both contains and releases energy as the butterfly moves through its life cycle to its final state, indicated by the vibration of the forms with their saturated colour against a backdrop of sky and hillside. Moving from dark cobalt blue and green to bright yellow and red, Shadbolt’s palette is rich and varied. Crossing Over superbly exemplifies both the artist’s fascination with the biological processes of flux, disintegration and transformation and his dynamic handling of abstract language.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars