Abstract tendencies
Artists Finlay and Khan celebrate life’s confusion
NICK MACMAHON, STAFF
You know you’re talking to a passionate artist when landscape art is merely a coffee break, as local artist Clyde Finlay told me in a recent interview, “Landscapes . . . are a nice way of breaking away from my abstraction.”
Clyde Finlay is a recent fine arts thesis graduate from the U of M. Teaming up with fellow artist Aleem Khan, they plan to invade your mind space with their stunning abstract expressionism — an art exhibit starting this Friday at the Outworks Gallery.
Their art finds common ground as chaos, ripe with intention. Aleem Khan’s work, although abstract, appears to have a sharp edge to it, accented by blank canvas space in some of his pieces. He cites Kandinsky and Pollack as two of his biggest influences. Making use of swirls and the occasional splatter over a soft backdrop, the pieces may cause salivation in the viewer craving an expensive dessert with artistic chocolate sauce squiggles. This is all done in a highly controlled fashion, making use of a few cool, slick colors that complement each other. House paint is his weapon of choice, as oils and acrylics are too thick, making it difficult to shade smoothly. His charcoal shading distinguishes him from his inspirations. “It does a nice thing for me, it slows me down because it can be quite impressionistic and so I enjoy that aspect of it, but then by going in and deleting certain aspects of the painting, then picking and choosing and scrutinizing, it forces me to stop and think about it a little more.” His process is deliberate and rich with meaning: “I lay down kind of a beautiful messy canvas and in a way that’s supposed to represent the world or nature without a perspective. And then I drop in these black lines; and those are supposed to be thoughts or ideas . . . when I start shading, I try to make a parallel of how historically we delete some facts and emphasize other facts to then arrive at a version of the truth.” Drawing from his political science degree, he echoes Nietzsche’s idea that “what we call the truth are just facts that we’ve created to help us not go mad.”
Finlay breathes life into his paintings by going with the flow of the brush stroke, letting himself go in the canvas. His paintings reflect this as they have a somewhat messiness to them, yet burst with vibrant power. Unlike Khan (a primarily self-taught painter), Finlay studied fine arts for 13 years as a part-time student at the U of M. This has given him a strong foundation of technique, learning a variety of standard brush strokes from many great professors who have helped him along the way. “With all that background, it really intensifies the work that I have brought forth to have for the show.” Using thick brush strokes and an array of warm colours, one painting looks like a melted rainbow Popsicle. The soft edges give the paintings a dream-like quality, evoking distorted impressionistic landscapes, one of them looking almost hellish. Heavily influenced by Bauhaus art (modern art and architecture style developed in Germany), Finlay too, draws from Kandinsky. The horizontal lines appearing in many of Finlay’s works come from Mondrian. The lines represent “society and bureaucracy and some of the things that were involved with our daily jobs and daily chores” which get in the way of the freedom expressed in the remainder of the painting. The bent lines, he adds, “shows some of the emotion and some of the things that I’m involved with while I’m in that painting during that day.”
Abstract art begs the question: does it breed positivity or negativity? Does it unite or does it separate the artist from their audience with its visual cacophony? Khan assured me that he’s ultimately trying to get across a positive point of view, encouraging people to accept one another, even though the disorder may make some uncomfortable. Finlay also acknowledged that “negativity can be very strong with abstraction because there’s really no determining factor of the simple rule that you have to have. I try to create something, so that it . . . makes them think, not always in a positive way.” Finlay continually reminded me that they are both “trying to reach the viewer, whatever their capacity is: knowing what art is or not knowing what art is.” Hopefully, their good natured personalities will shine through their paintings as they did for me: these are two good guys with admirable day jobs. Khan is a co-ordinator of marketing and promotions at Martha Street Studio, helping other artists get on their feet. Finlay works for the justice department, helping juvenile criminals and gives occasional art workshops. Ultimately, they both dispel the myth of the “struggling artist.”
Finlay Khan: New Works at the Outworks Gallery (290 McDermot Ave) opens Friday, Sept. 7 at 7:30 p.m., running until midnight, featuring the Heitha Forsyth jazz quartet. During the week, the gallery will be open from noon to 5 p.m. each day until Sunday, Sept. 16. Open in the evening by phone request.
