The Kyle and Brad Show: A Premature Retrospective

For our very first commercial art show, Brad Blucher and I settled on the title “A Premature Retrospective for a number of reasons. We were not presenting a focused body of work, it was an eclectic collection of art that we had been working on for the last few years. It was sort of a retrospective of our work from high school and early University. Of course, having our very first show a “retrospective” is a little premature.

But the biggest reason for choosing this title was because… well, we found it kind of funny.

Kyle Clements and Brad Blucher soaking in the experience and schmoozing with the patrons at Y.O. Media gallery.

Bridge over Black River, Acrylic on canvas. 18″ X 24″, 2002 Dusk, Oil on canvas. 12″ X 16″, 2002

Diptych, Acrylic on canvas. 16″ X 48″, 2003

I was pretty obsessed with Gerhard Richter and Hans Hoffman in late high school and early university. In 2003, I think this obsession spilled over into just about everything I was painting. I was interested in the contrast between illusionistic space (perspective, shading, etc) and optical space (overlap, colour, texture). I was also interested in the integration of abstraction with representation.

Untitled, Acrylic on masonite, 2003.

This was an assignment where the class was required to make a collage, then make a painting based off of that image, and present the two side by side. I was never very good with collage materials and images, so I chose to make a digital collage. I found the experience very satisfying, and it came very easily to me. Little did I know that this kind of digital collage-making would become an integral part of my working process three years later.

Cubist Deconstruction of a Face, Acrylic on canvas, 36″ X 36″, 2004. SOLD