<\/p>\n
June 10,<\/p>\n
This unfashionability which has nothing to do with being old-fashioned \u2014 not only makes Tobin\u2019s work unique, it speaks to his integrity and conviction at a time when artists all too frequently surrender to the marketplace.<\/p>\n
A modest exhibition of 11 of Tobin\u2019s works is on view through Aug. 13 at the Homer Watson Gallery, along with an exhibition of skyscapes by fellow Kitchener artist Norma McDonald and the gallery\u2019s annual tribute exhibition to its namesake.<\/p>\n
Although he would likely shudder at the label, Tobin can be described as a postmodernist. He employs the earth-tones, brooding atmosphere and glazing technique similar to the Old Masters, but there is nothing outdated or derivative about his landscapes and figure paintings. His work has a freshness which is no weaker for being subtle.<\/p>\n
The exhibition\u2019s title, Ethereal Properties of Landscape, accurately conveys Tobin\u2019s artistic intentions, which are evident in the works themselves. His luxurious paintings are a pleasure to behold. They are beautiful in ways that gallery goers would recognize and appreciate prior to the revolution in the visual arts that accompanied 19th century French Impressionism.<\/p>\n
Notwithstanding how one defines or responds to the tactile beauty of his paintings, Tobin is not primarily concerned with surface appearances \u2014 either in art or in life. Rather, his preoccupation is with the spiritual correspondences between humanity and nature. He attempts to give expression to these correspondences by penetrating surface appearances to reveal an inner, metaphysical reality that transcends time and place.<\/p>\n
Tobin\u2019s paintings are representational, but they are not to be read literally. Many are inspired by local landmarks \u2014 the Grand River, Victoria Park, Columbus Lake, Mount Pleasant Cemetery. But even viewers familiar with these places would have difficulty recognizing them.<\/p>\n
Tobin is not interested in painting identifiable scenes, but in painting landscapes and figures that evoke feeling and\/or the nude woman could just as easily have been painted a century ago as yesterday.<\/p>\n
Similarly, there is a strong impulse toward idealization. His pastoral landscapes are both ideal and idyll.<\/p>\n
Tobin\u2019s paintings are best read metaphorically, as suggested by the title of his painting of a nude woman \u2014 The Poet and the Landscape \u2014 which shows a ghostly white woman lying down in what seems to be a cave, with its many symbolic associations.<\/p>\n
Similarly, Figure and Winter Landscape shows a man with his back to the viewer entering a small clearing in thick woods from a snowy field. The emotion evoked by this wonderfully mysterious painting brings to mind Frost\u2019s Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
June 10, This unfashionability which has nothing to do with being old-fashioned \u2014 not only makes Tobin\u2019s work unique, it speaks to his integrity and conviction at a time when artists all too frequently surrender to the marketplace. A modest exhibition of 11 of Tobin\u2019s works is on view through Aug. 13 at the … <\/p>\n