Jack Shadbolt’s bold application of colour and emphasis on dynamic angles immediately make one aware of the vitality of Red Landscape. Shadbolt’s travels in Europe, particularly in the Mediterranean, and his experiences in World War II, affected his evolution as an artist. David Burnett and Marilyn Schiff comment that his “sources and interests are legion: the great masters of the past, Cubism and Surrealism, the American regionalists.” Although his work was abstracted, Scott Watson notes that he always had a subject, with “the growth, death and renewal cycle of nature being primary.” It was Shadbolt’s research for a mural commission in 1962 for the Edmonton Airport that could have led to this work. As part of his research for this tribute to Canada’s northern bush pilots, he flew over the landscape and studied aerial photographs. Consequently, he did paintings and sketches of composite impressions of the landscape from above, rendered in fractured and flattened planes. With Red Landscape’s slashing lines and unique perspective of the land, Shadbolt invites the viewer to contemplate the deconstruction of reality and the once familiar elements of nature.

For the biography on Torben V. Kristiansen in PDF format, please click here.