PACIFIC PERSPECTIVE

I am much struck and deeply moved by this extraordinary 1967 painting, 'Pacific': the work of Alex Colville (1920-2013), a Canadian artist and print-maker, responsible for works of Magical Realism that confront the viewer with mysterious imagery that beg questions and provoke propositions. 

 

There is so much discipline in its composition: the precision of painting: the geometrically-tiled floor; the table (with its curious measuring rule – establishing a formal sense of order, control or, perhaps, indices of time and space) and the portentous pistol carelessly, or precisely, abandoned or just waiting; the louvered window and the seascape beyond all contrasted with the figure of the shirtless man, turned from us, head and features unseen, watching, we presume, the gentle breaking of a single wave...