Jun 13 2010

Eventual Synthesis Perry Rath

EVENTUAL SYNTHESIS Recent Painting by Perry Rath Opening Friday June 18th at 7pm Artist Talk at 7:30pm This June through July, Island Mountain Arts Public Gallery will showcase a selection of recent work by Smithers-based visual artist Perry Rath. This exhibit is a stunning group of paintings, small-scale installation, and collaborations highlighting the artist's incredible mastery of his varied mediums, lending us an elusive experience of our own Eventual Synthesis with this world. Since graduating in Fine Art from the University of Guelph in 1995, Rath has been pursuing artistic projects in a variety of international venues. His installations and paintings demonstrate a vital sensitivity to materials, and explore the interplay of the idea and the materials. Using topographical maps, historical and current photographs, and layers of paint glazes and textures, assembled to juxtapose geometric divisions with organic undulations, Rath’s paintings are enigmatic expressions of our landscapes and human presence. Within these works is a fascination by all that is held within the landscape and the maps of that territory – the stories, the routes, the changes, the tragedies, and the reverence. His installations speak to the vulnerable yet resilient nature of life. The work plays with the visual and conceptual relationships of memory, renewal, presence/absence, history and time. His poetic constructions contain an intrinsic charmed potency located between the contemplative and the amusing. Rath has exhibited across Canada, and internationally in Australia, India, Germany, Russia, Britain and the US. His work has attracted the attention of the Governor-General, and he was included in the survey book “New Art International” published by Book Art Press, New York. More recently, he was included in several other book projects and his artwork was used by BC Parks for interpretive signs in the Bulkley Valley. This exhibition is open to the public from June 18th until July 13th.  Perry Rath will be available at the opening for questions and comments at 7pm on June 18th.  For more information about Rath’s upcoming show, or other events at Island Mountain Arts visit www.imarts.com or phone 1-800-442-2787.