Secret 8 continues to offer some of Calgary’s most interesting little exhibitions (including the impressive premier of four films by renowned UK artist Dick Jewell last summer) and Patrick Cruz’s Otherings is no exception. Curated by Jenn Jackson, this exhibition brings together a selection of the Filipino-Canadian artist’s crafty and genuinely strange paintings alongside small sculptural works. The installation functions as a whole because each 3D assemblage morphs into a painterly counterpoint that ultimately creates a screen-like visual immersion. Cruz’s project appears to be a critical recuperation of folk-art aesthetics and methodologies, evident through the works’ wild patterning, mussel shells (and other found objects) glue-gunned to canvas, and a particular super-saturated colour palate. 
Patrick Cruz, Otherings, 2015
I am always curious why contemporary artists bother with paint, but Cruz’s visual propositions don’t require any justification. They are at once dependent upon and completely subverting the medium and practice of painting. His recent (like yesterday) winning of the RBC Canadian Painting Competition (congrats!) galvanises his position as a capital-P painter, but his previous work could be designated as of the “post-internet” variety. He has made an unusual shift from the digital world into hardcore materiality, but it serves him well in that he is a world-class magpie and an experienced image aggregator. This skill set allows Cruz to deftly combine disparate materials in this exhibition, including a lot of found images seemingly printed off in colour from the computer. I nearly missed one of my favourite parts of the exhibition on my first pass – a small staple-bound publication made of starkly presented found images related to human intervention and animals, such as a picture of a tortoise whose shell has grown to accommodate a plastic six-pack ring. The publication is equal parts amusing and horrifying as well as being a subtle but effective distillation of Otherings as a whole.
Secret 8 Project Space: http://www.secreteight.ca/about/
Patrick Cruz: Otherings continues until January 20.
Sarah Todd is a curator currently based in Calgary. She has previously worked at Western Front, InterAccess Electronic Media Arts Centre, XPACE Cultural Centre, and The Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery. She has also produced projects with a range of organizations including Vtape, Kunstverein München, The Goethe Institute, The Pacific Cinematheque, Glenbow Museum and The Illingworth Kerr Gallery. She is Akimblog’s Calgary correspondent and can be followed on Twitter @sarahannetodd.
↧
Patrick Cruz at Secret 8 Project Space
↧