Sold for: $11,800

PROVENANCE
Bau-Xi Gallery, Vancouver
Private Collection, Vancouver

Jack Shadbolt writes, in a letter to the consignor in which he reflects upon this work: "How did it come about? Well, yes, I had been doing a few canvases on the undersea theme – something I rarely do and I guess I was in the mood. I did it at my Hornby Island studio. What was intriguing me most about the fish theme was the fluid movement of these darting & swirling red and gold forms in the deep sea–green color of the water. The swarm in the upper left panel was the kind of movement I remember from childhood looking down between the cracks at the pier of the Oak Bay boathouse in Victoria on a sunny afternoon. I was fascinated by these squirming clusters in shining silver. The red-gold part, I guess, came later from watching gold fish in pool[s] – of which I have had several experiences. And a fellow artist had given me a Japanese calendar with big color reproductions of garden fish pools, which they love.

However I was not thinking of fish when I started the first panel - the groom – on the left. Oddly enough I had been looking at some Navaho headdress in a book – a band around the head – and I guess it was enough to get me started on the white sheet (the work is done on heavy watercolour board). I worked around with some decorative head-like forms (you can still see the Navaho pieces in pale blue zig-zags on black) and then I extended it downward to knock it off the head shape and somehow the configuration suggested a fish shape. I followed this clue and swirled some green water around it and a few other fish forms. By then I liked the fish notion and I set up another panel and started a similar but more decorative form going and invented into it…..Then I got the notion of putting the panels together and connecting up their movement – and then the bride and groom idea hit me because of the white decorative elegance of the right figure – and I thought fish-mouth all rouged up and innocent looking groom and the wedding in [a] swirl of little fish commotion to give it a festive air – and so on.

My works tend to generate themselves as they go along. They are seldom pre-conceived but from out of the act of painting. Not always, but that is my general process. This one is whimsical, at the end of a pleasant summer. Most of the time my images are a little more enigmatic and at times, perhaps, sinister or foreboding. In any case, when I saw the work again, I found it intriguing and it tickled my funny bone as I hope it does yours."

All prices are in Canadian Dollars

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