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Review of robert young

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Ronnie Caplan
Ronnie Caplan

Robert Young is a Canadian artist from British Columbia whose work is on display at the Galerie Mira Goddard. His dream-like paintings use a variety of mediums like oil, acrylic, and etching very effectively. His colorful, flowing paintings invite the viewer in with vivid imagery and tickle the imagination. Young paints photographic realist portraits of people, animals, and indigenous peoples in a way that animates them and gives them souls. His work has a surreal quality and melancholy feeling that contrasts with uplifting visions communicated deep within each painting. Some of his indigenous portraits powerfully depict the bloodshed of their past and speak out for their ancestors, with a forceful and disturbing message.

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Review of Robert Young, Galerie Mira Goddard by Ronnie Caplan Upon entering The Galerie Mira Goddard (1490 Sherbrooke St. W.) you are immediately besieged by color and a sense of urgency in the works by Robert Young, a Canadian artist from British Columbia. Dream-like canvases unfold before you, spaced comfortably apart and displayed in a variety of mediums: oil, acrylic, pencil, serigraph and aquatint with etching. Young uses each medium effectively, taking full advantage to display his techniques. His colors are clean, flowing and bright, inviting the eye into each work with amazing clarity and imagery. This rhapsody of inspiration involves the viewer directly by tickling the imagination. Robert Young is a photographic realist, catching his objects, figures of human beings, animals and especially Indians in snapshot poses, forever immortalized within the depths of his painted borders. He does not stop there though; Young goes one step further by giving his subjects souls, and an animation that lifts them right off of the canvas! His work has a surrealistic edge because of this, and can be compared to the paintings by Giorgio de Chirico in that there is something going on in both these artists works, right beneath the layers of paint so lovingly applied something alive, and mysterious. There is a melancholy feeling that hangs over a lot of Youngs paintings, like Allegorical Figure, a sensuous, sad woman chained to her past, as she forever holds onto the support of the fence behind her, or Diablero, of a man lost in contemplation, drifting aimlessly through a vast bleak landscape. Using acrylics, Young achieves translucent qualities, with soft brush strokes and subtle, pastel hues. This melancholy is shot through with hope and uplifting visions that are communicated to the viewer from deep within the depths of each painting. In direct contrast with these are Youngs paintings of Indians, bringing us right back to the stark reality of our own world. In Momento II, the two transparent Indians shout out at the viewer for retribution, striking fear in the heart and chills up and down the spine. These ghost-like apparitions are tragic and pitifully expressionless, and you know that they are weary of oppression as the colors fluidly bind them to their land, their environment brutal colors that brazenly define the bloodshed of their past. Their shocking and disturbing faces speak out for a nation of ancestors. Young is very forceful here, almost to the point of exaggeration, but he gets his message across.

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Review of robert young

  • 1. Review of Robert Young, Galerie Mira Goddard by Ronnie Caplan Upon entering The Galerie Mira Goddard (1490 Sherbrooke St. W.) you are immediately besieged by color and a sense of urgency in the works by Robert Young, a Canadian artist from British Columbia. Dream-like canvases unfold before you, spaced comfortably apart and displayed in a variety of mediums: oil, acrylic, pencil, serigraph and aquatint with etching. Young uses each medium effectively, taking full advantage to display his techniques. His colors are clean, flowing and bright, inviting the eye into each work with amazing clarity and imagery. This rhapsody of inspiration involves the viewer directly by tickling the imagination. Robert Young is a photographic realist, catching his objects, figures of human beings, animals and especially Indians in snapshot poses, forever immortalized within the depths of his painted borders. He does not stop there though; Young goes one step further by giving his subjects souls, and an animation that lifts them right off of the canvas! His work has a surrealistic edge because of this, and can be compared to the paintings by Giorgio de Chirico in that there is something going on in both these artists works, right beneath the layers of paint so lovingly applied something alive, and mysterious. There is a melancholy feeling that hangs over a lot of Youngs paintings, like Allegorical Figure, a sensuous, sad woman chained to her past, as she forever holds onto the support of the fence behind her, or Diablero, of a man lost in contemplation, drifting aimlessly through a vast bleak landscape. Using acrylics, Young achieves translucent qualities, with soft brush strokes and subtle, pastel hues. This melancholy is shot through with hope and uplifting visions that are communicated to the viewer from deep within the depths of each painting. In direct contrast with these are Youngs paintings of Indians, bringing us right back to the stark reality of our own world. In Momento II, the two transparent Indians shout out at the viewer for retribution, striking fear in the heart and chills up and down the spine. These ghost-like apparitions are tragic and pitifully expressionless, and you know that they are weary of oppression as the colors fluidly bind them to their land, their environment brutal colors that brazenly define the bloodshed of their past. Their shocking and disturbing faces speak out for a nation of ancestors. Young is very forceful here, almost to the point of exaggeration, but he gets his message across.