Sold for: $49,250

PROVENANCE
Acquired directly from the Artist by a Private Collection, Vancouver
Canadian Post-War & Contemporary Art, Heffel Fine Art Auction House, May 15, 2013, lot 71
Private Collection, Vancouver
Grizzly Bear Gala Auction, September 2017
Acquired from the above by the present Private Collection, Vancouver

Gordon Smith is acknowledged as one of Canada’s finest landscape painters and an early proponent of modernism on the West Coast. At his West Vancouver studio, Smith was surrounded by forest, and the patterns of its web of life were an ongoing source of fascination for him. Resembling a blizzard of slender snow-encrusted branches, this beautiful painting from the Entanglements series dazzles the eye with its dense criss-cross tracery of white lines. Although white may be the first impression, on closer consideration the dark background emerges, with its splashes of both warm and cool tones – an abstraction of the forest’s growth and ground. This painting could also be seen as a completely abstract work. Its all-over patterning creates a strong surface plane, with the contained dance of its gestures, marks and lines handled with absolute assurance. White light can be broken into all colours – which can be seen to happen here, with many colours dancing below the surface. Elegant and ethereal, Abstract (Entanglements series) shows Smith's ever-evolving relationship to nature and his mastery of the language of paint itself.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars