Additional Images

Provenance:

Private Collection, New York

Literature:

Whyte, Murray. “How Kim Dorland is changing the landscape at McMichael Gallery.” The Toronto Star. October 18, 2013.

Note:

Drawing his inspiration from iconic artists such as Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven, Kim Dorland takes the rich tradition of Canadian landscape painting and infuses it with contemporary imagery. In Lost (2011) the viewer is introduced to a subdued landscape, a departure from Dorland’s characteristically large and vibrant work. Painted on a small scale, a thick black impasto for which he is known lies against an iridescent silver sky, introducing us to Dorland’s eerie depiction of our natural environment and the artist’s unique interpretation of nature. “When you’re dealing with only the landscape, you have to tune up the material a lot to push it into an interesting, uncomfortable place... if I produce something that’s strictly just beautiful, I failed. My biggest fear is that my paintings go somewhere and then become inert.”

The diversity of Kim Dorland’s work is evident in Moose (2011). In this work the artist experiments with mixed media on a taxidermied moose head, pushing the boundaries of paint and material. Dorland insists that first and foremost, his works are about the creative process, his near obsession with colour and his powerful and intuitive relationship to paint. The sculpture bears a strong relationship to our landscape by presenting a wild Canadian icon while simultaneously diffusing the animal’s predacious quality.

Dorland studied at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design (Vancouver) as well as York University (Toronto) where he received his Master of Fine Arts degree in 2003. His works are exhibited globally and are included in the collections of the Musée des beaux- arts in Montréal; Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal; Glenbow Museum (Calgary); the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego and the Art Gallery of Alberta. Current exhibitions include “Kim Dorland: Everyday Monsters” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver from 14 May to 28 June, 2015 and “Kim Dorland: I’ve seen the future, brother” at Galerie Antoine Ertaskiran from 22 April to 30 May, 2015.