Shirley Wiitasalo
Shirley Wiitasalo
Shirley Wiitasalo’s exhibition of new work at Susan Hobbs Gallery is her 18th solo show in Toronto; her first was at A Space in 1973. Thirteen works are included in the two viewing spaces. The six paintings downstairs are medium-size, oil-on-canvas pieces; the seven upstairs are small framed gouaches on paper.
The show doesn’t represent a radical departure from the artist’s previous work, but familiarity, in this case, is not a defect. The paintings show a control of materials and technique characteristic of a mature artist—they are measured, consistent and restrained throughout. Thinned layers of paint are typically built up to create a ground into which figures are sometimes integrated; however, they are indefinite and not placed in a recognizable physical context. Rather, they coexist with the abstract elements of the work.
Wiitasalo’s colour choices are generally restricted to a narrow range within each work; they create interest without being obvious, and complexity without muddiness. The effort of creating the work is not apparent, and anyone who has tried to make a painting that does not show the strain of its creation knows that this is not easily done.
One of Wiitasalo’s achievements is her consistent ability to make work that obviates criticism by making it tangential to the experience of viewing the work. There is no specific statement that can be paraphrased or decoded; no particular aesthetic program supports or is supported by the paintings. She owns their look outright: it does not feel mortgaged to any precedent. The aesthetic experience here is circumscribed by the space of the painting and the time spent considering it. The encounter is between object and viewer, full stop.
The fact that criticism has been rendered peripheral is not to say there’s nothing to say. The work is grounded in a tradition of making a visually satisfying art object that is an expression of a personal sensibility. There is no appeal to the self-consciousness or irony that inform the Pop-art tradition that dominates most contemporary art production. Wiitasalo’s work keeps the widest variety of possibilities viable.
Image captions:
Wiitasalo, Cool, 2006, oil on canvas, 76 x 61 cm, photo Isaac Applebaum
Shirley Wiitasalo, Return, 2006, oil on canvas, 91.5 x 112 cm, photo Isaac Applebaum Shirley
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