Sold for: $12,870

PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Vancouver

EXHIBITED
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Fourth Biennial Exhibition, 1961, catalogue #75
The Elsie Perrin Williams Memorial Art Museum, London, Ontario, 1968, catalogue #75

The hot, charged colour palette and sun-drenched, abstracted landscape present in this richly painted work derive from Jack Shadbolt’s 1960 return trip to Europe, when he visited Mediterranean medieval towns and painted at Menton and Collioure. The inscription notes that this work was produced at Menton in the Côte d’Azur region of France. Shadbolt was drawn to this sensual environment of heat and colour, and paintings such as this reflect the hedonistic delight and sense of freedom he experienced there. Also during this time, Shadbolt was experimenting with automatic techniques of mark-marking, producing expressionist ink and acrylic washes on paper dominated by strong, black calligraphic forms. Forms like this are present here, and in his title Shadbolt intimates a struggle between these dark, potent forms and the rich hot reds, oranges and yellows - possibly symbolizing different impulses of the psyche. Transformation, manifestation of the unconscious, dynamic tension and spontaneity were at the core of Shadbolt’s painting, and are manifest in Dark Expelled. Chosen for the National Gallery of Canada’s Fourth Biennial in 1961, this is an outstanding work from this period.

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