The Obsession of Art

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IAN TAN GALLERY

2202 Granville Street Vancouver, British Columbia V6H 4H7 T: 604.738.1077 e: info@iantangallery.com

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SEATTLE ART MUSEUM GALLERY

Seattle Tower, 1220 Third Avenue Seattle, Washington 98101 T: 206.343.1101 e: samgallery@seattleartmuseum.org

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Gibson Fine art

628 11th Avenue SW Calgary, Alberta T2R 0E2 T: 403.244.2000 e:info@gibsonfineart.ca

https://gibsonfineart.ca/artists/53-kentree-speirs/

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“The subjects in Kentree’s paintings are clear indications to bring the phenomenon of nature closer. And any indication can mean all. Everything that seems solid can move. All matter appears to consist of merging energy.”

-The obsession of Art, Bergen, Netherlands

Gestural, formal and swirling with energy, Kentree Speirs’ works pulse, recede, fuse, and divide in delirious combinations. Though landscapes, their aesthetic is rooted in action painting, where a meticulous process is applied onto a surface, giving it life. Kentree is a painter’s painter, one propelled by the mysterious act of painting itself. Each work is a sifting, searching operation, guided by an intuitive balance of colour, light, and form. While derived from the peaks and striations of glacially carved mountain forms, the shapes dissolve into each other, abstractly suggesting the logic of chance, sublime beauty, and mystery involved in the constructive process. The subject in the works is merely a visual reference, from which Kentree distances himself, thereby approaching the phenomenon of the thing itself. In playing out alchemical creation on the arena of the canvas, the earth is turned out, and typically static mountains breathe and morph as if synthesizing molten rock in an ethereal, non-descript space. The search for meaning in Speirs’ images is expressed through the terms set by the paint. While in this space, one hopes to see something that cannot be seen except through the medium. In this way, the paint moves beyond being a symbol, where it becomes the event in and of itself.

Kentree Speirs understands the drama and romance of mountains. Using landscape imagery, he tries to convey the sense of absorbing an all-encompassing view, capturing the thrill felt standing on a precipice peering into the void. As paintings, these works find a unique voice by blending stylistic elements. Aspects of his technique are executed with delicacy, while others are boldly applied - his process at times made evident through employing drips and wild impasto brushstrokes. Kentree’s colour choices cover the spectrum, resulting in a kinetic swirl of disorienting, spectacular painterly accidents.
His work could be described as abstract expressionist, colour-field landscape painting, where the suggestion of earthy structures is given prevalence to human figures. The focus is not on a single perspective - Kentree traces cliff contours, letting us peek over and around the edges until the kaleidoscopic melange dissolves into a sea of infinite whiteness. Through channeling vital energy into painting, he explores emotive translations of the sublime as a way of communicating his passion. As Speirs’ work continues to evolve, he remains one to watch, making him an exciting addition to the canon of artists who capture British Columbia’s dramatic landscape.
-Ian Tan Gallery, Vancouver, BC. Canada

The bright, semi-abstracted oil paintings of Kentree Speirs at Blackfish Gallery are altogether joyous celebrations of the natural world... Beginning with an outdoors scene, Speirs overlays and blocks it geometrically and delves into the lush properties of paint itself. The results are intimately dynamic and pleasing: rare and happy outbursts of optimism.

-Bob Hicks, Oregonian Portland, Oregon USA

Kentree speirs’ semi-abstract mountainscapes turn toward the plight of glaciers

“My art has been a deeply personal, spiritual, emotional process, but it’s also an environmental statement. But I don’t want to hit people over the head with that. Inspiring people to be aware of our environment from a place of beauty is really my approach.” This beauty is boldly apparent in artist Kentree Speirs’ paintings, in which mountains rise out of abstract colours, textures
and shapes. A success in galleries in Calgary, Vancouver, Seattle and Portland, Speirs now intends to bring his work to the public in his own community of Kaslo. For six weeks starting November 4, Speirs will be the artist in residence at the Langham Cultural Centre.

While Speirs’ work has featured mountains for about a decade, the paintings he produces at the Langham will focus on an additional element: glaciers. Altogether entitled “Disappearance,” these pieces will explore the effects of climate change on these massive bodies of ice. Visitors to the main gallery will be able to watch the artist in action, view his completed paintings and discover how glaciers have changed over time. “All my life, environmental concerns have been a key awareness for me as I’ve watched the destruction of so much wilderness area that I’ve loved and explored,” says Speirs. “Instead of complaining about things, I want to have some positive effect.”

The 51-year-old and his family have only been Kaslo residents two years, but are already intending to build a home and settle in long-term. Previously from Portland, they had lived in a couple of other places in British Columbia before latching onto the area Speirs had visited as a climber and backcountry skier two decades before.

It’s this tendency toward nature that has informed Speirs’ art. While he began his university studies in forestry, he completed only one year before deciding to commit himself to art. He then travelled, taught self-reliance skills and spent about four months per year in the backcountry—for about 13 years. When he returned to university at Portland State University, he pursued a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a minor in Geology. “My studies in geology have influenced the work greatly,” Speirs says. “Knowing how mountains are formed informs how I paint intuitively and from memory. This helps me depict a realized sense of place. Many of my paintings show geological stratification in the mountains, for example—and I have made specific tools to help create this effect.” Speirs uses several handmade tools—from squeegees to shapers—to push and pull oil paint across the panel surfaces, in addition to using brushes. Panel sizes range from 2-by-3 feet, to the more typical 4-by-4 feet, to 6-by-4 feet, which he sometimes combines into a diptych of 6-by-8 feet. The larger paintings have stronger impact and are more popular, but it’s the smaller ones that make him less afraid to take risks. It’s these works that often inspire the bigger ones. Speirs doesn’t set out with a set vision in mind. “I’m a process painter. I’m reacting to each different passage of paint and colour and texture to build a composition.” He may start a painting with gestural marks in acrylic paint to find a departure point, then moves on to using oils. If he sees a nice shape, he may further define or abstract it. He may rotate the panel, or lay it horizontally on a table. “Each painting has its own evolution and voice that I’m trying to pay attention to. It’s always trying to find that serendipitous accident, really.” He has five to eight paintings on the go at once. “I’ll have them around me, and so I’ll always be influenced by them and contemplating the composition, and if they’re finished or there’s an area to resolve.” He also tries to push his own boundaries. “I intentionally set up challenges to try to resolve, like colour palettes that are difficult to reconcile, in order to create more push and pull in the colour. As an artist it keeps me interested in the process, because when you’re painting day in, day out, you have to find inspiration.” As a final step, he varnishes the work, which not only protects the paint but intensifies the colour and creates depth. This semi-abstract/landscape style of painting has been Speirs’ main repertoire since 2007. At that time, he was teaching art at Portland State University and primarily painting commissioned portraits. When a fellow professor mentioned she was excited to get to her studio, Speirs realized he had lost his own enthusiasm. To get it back, he decided to take a landscape painting and abstract it. “That was the first painting that launched me into this present abstract landscape. I was intending to go completely abstract, but the horizon line kept appearing. I realized I was really being influenced by my lifetime experience of being in nature.”

Speirs is grateful to be able to make a living as an artist, completing 40 to 50 pieces per year and selling 30 to 40 of them. In fact, he had completed a glacier painting to serve as a demonstration for the Langham residency but sold it before the residency even began. He hopes to create six paintings during his six weeks at the centre, which he may then build into a larger body of work. Speirs explains his paintings are a sum of “the events of my life passions: my art discipline, wilderness experiences, spiritual discipline and passion for environmental preservation. I like to think this is an intimate quality that becomes transparent, allowing the work to be honest and accessible to viewers.”

-ARTiculate Magazine 18 FALL/WINTER 2016 -17 by Galadriel Watson West Kootenays, BC. Canada