Douglas Morton - Re: Surfacing

May 9, to September 6, 2009

Curated by MacKenzie Art Gallery Curatorial Intern, Erin Gee

What do cars, television, and abstract painting have in common? In the exhibition Re: Surfacing, I use this question as an entry point into a critical analysis of the work of Regina Five artist Douglas Morton. This show features paintings from the permanent collection of the MacKenzie Art Gallery, as well as paintings borrowed from local public and corporate collections.

Re: Surfacing represents the culmination of my eight-month curatorial internship at the MacKenzie. Working with Head Curator Timothy Long, I engaged in the preparation of an art exhibition as part of a Professional Studies class offered through the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Regina. During my final year of study as a Bachelor of Visual Arts student, I independently researched connections between the paintings of Douglas Morton and the spatial philosophies of French theorist Henri Lefebvre, who were both working at the same time to describe the construction of “space.” The parallels revealed between both Morton and Lefebvre’s work offer new insights into Morton’s use of shape and colour relationships in his paintings. These relationships function in contrast to the dominant, Greenbergian painting ideology of Morton’s time, which may explain the lack of critical attention given to this significant Canadian artist. This exhibition will open alongside the Ted Godwin retrospective as a further window into the work of the Regina Five.

Image Credit:

Douglas Morton
2 Blues, 1965
acrylic on Canvas 146 x 214 cm
MacKenzie Art Gallery, University of Regina Collection,
Gift of Peter and Judith Beaglehole

Curated by Erin Gee in a partnership between the MacKenzie Art Gallery and the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Regina. Organized by the MacKenzie Art Gallery with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Saskatchewan Arts Board and the City of Regina Arts Commission.

Douglas Morton - Re: Surfacing

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