| Light & Being
by Ben Portis*
In the course of an artistic life, there are
a few periods of exceptional creativity. There is
the flourish of youth with dawning self-sense and
defining one's stake in the world. There are later
flushes of maturity when clarity and confidence are
instilled with sudden knowing force. Occasionally
the most remarkable years come with seniority, when
aspects of release, retrospect, courage, honesty and
urgency combine with a summation that defies
explanation, yet is instantly recognizable for its
originality and achievement. Wonderfully, this late
display of prowess can be attained without due
recognition being bestowed at earlier stages, from
the public, from one's peers or even from oneself.
For the past year, John Heward has seized upon
painting with newfound purpose, prolifically producing
a varied series of untitled self-portraits that not
only strike the viewer as fresh but as sympathetic.
As a cumulative reflection on self, they are
a remarkable group to encounter and identify
with Ð barely grounded in the face-and-figure
elements one regards in a mirror, these heads
capture the fleetingly askance glimpses we spy
in serial reflections or quick snapshots. They
reveal aspects of Heward's earlier work which
were previously difficult to determine and
substantiate his claim he has been engaged in
a course of self-reflection all along.
Those familiar with Heward's painting know its
large-scale calligraphic gestures; its minimal bars
of white, black, yellow or red rectangles on
unstretched canvases; his effacing impulse
to tear or drape pictures so that their designs
are removed or hidden; and his repertoire of
figural signs obscured in profile or silhouette.
Heward often assembles exhibitions of these works
with the sensibility of a sculptor more so than a painter.
The new paintings too are informed by his
sculptural attitude. A nod, a shrug, a stare,
a tremor is variously captured in the constancy
of the head. Eyes are marked throughout, but these
portraits do not celebrate sight. Some relate the
eye to socket of the skull; some to the glazed look
of introspection or the correctives of an outer lens.
some the eye shows impairment (as in a cataract) or
absence (as in gouging away). In some the
eyes are shuttering lids of sleep. The construction of
these heads accounts equally for the materiality of
breath and thought and motivation as they do for
cartilage and flesh. The complex translation of being
is efficiently and sensitively handled in paint.
Rawness does not preclude refinement. Heward's
portraits are blunt and frank, but demonstrate
a profound sophistication and self-knowledge.
They find innate moods and vagaries in an
even-keeled disposition and carry the mixed
cargo of lifelong experience. The artist's
superfluities have been jettisoned for
this late venture to self-discovery and with
a trim spirit, Heward's trip promises a heady
inner illumination ahead.
Ben Portis
*Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art at the Art Gallery of Ontario
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