2014 Catalogue Archive

Through a series of unsettling juxtapositions, Tim Gardner creates compelling works that show the tension between photography and painting. Gardner works in watercolor or pastel – delicate, traditional materials – though he depicts contemporary scenes and often paints from snapshots. Like many of his recent works, Backside show an isolated figure engulfed by a natural setting. The empty, eternal quality of the landscape could be compared to Romantic paintings by artists like Caspar David Friederich, though the surfer caught mid-wave is unique to the age of photography. Solo exhibitions of Gardner’s work have taken place at Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver; Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art; and National Gallery, London. Group shows include Visions of British Columbia, Vancouver Art Gallery; All the More Real, Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill; New Work: Tim Gardner, Marcelino Goncalves, Zak Smith, SF MoMA; and Will Boys Be Boys? Questioning Masculinity in Contemporary Art organized by Independent Curators International.