UPCOMING SHOW - SPECIMEN DAYS
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Date: September 16-30, 2023
Reception: September 22, 4pm -7pm Location: Window Art Gallery This show takes its title from Walt Whitman’s writings after recovering from a stroke at the age of 54. He had witnessed the trauma of the Civil War up close. After visiting the war hospitals and ministering to the wounded and dying, he found peace and comfort in nature. “After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, love, and so on - have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear - what remains? - Nature remains...I restore my book to the bracing and buoyant equilibrium of concrete outdoor Nature, the only permanent reliance for sanity of book or human life.” The natural world Whitman was living in was a lot less threatened by the impact of human activity than our current fraught situation. This summer’s fires, floods, droughts, tornados, typhoons and weird weather everywhere show that man-made climate change poses an existential threat to life on Earth. Whitman’s endorsement of “concrete outdoor Nature” is a reminder that we need to protect the planet. Specimen Days’ is a collection of sketches/observations written over an extended period of time - war memoranda, nature jottings and travel notes. This exhibition is similarly a random selection of recent and older works mostly featuring specimens from Nature. |
Artist Statement: I paint in watercolour and acrylic. I have also used photography, found objects and text in my work. My subject matter references the landscape around Kingston, ON, and also the books that I read, politics and film, the landscape in my head.Dave GordonDave Gordon is a painter living in Kingston, Ontario. He taught for 20 years at St. Lawrence College, and is also a part-time teacher for the Limestone District School Board. Dave has also travelled and taught in China, and has had solo exhibitions in Kingston, St. Catharines, London, Toronto, North Bay, Sydenham, and Peterborough Ontario.
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RECENT SHOWS
"The Spirit of Walt Whitman at Bon Echo" at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston, Spring 2020
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