He would be much too dazzled to see distinctly, those things whose shadows he'd seen before.
- Plato
- Plato
For years now, Tony Scherman has paid most of his attention to Europe, rummaging about in the waste of its revolutions and myths. He's now turned his eyes on Canada to examine some of our failures and cast them in larger-than-life encaustic close-ups. Saying it's about the October Crisis of 1970 wouldn't explain much. That's fine because the show doesn't explain much and it's doubtful that it's supposed to. Nothing terribly analytical is going on. Instead, he creates sedimentary lumps. They aren't so much paintings as crystal formations within which an avatar is projected. A face whose temporal quality is inscribed in it by the medium itself. The edges of each layer show through. Each layer another captured mark and another set of dissimulations. He makes a cave out of wax.
