Gord Smith‘s art is pretty easy on the eye and customers might be drawn to the delightful, bright colours and the superficially abstract shapes and patterns dancing across the surfaces of his paintings and tiles. Don’t be fooled. The creative process behind the work is radical, not decorative.
Gord Smith at the Gerrard Art Space, May 4, 2014
Faced with a choice today of listening to a 2-hour artist’s talk by Gord or tagging along on a Jane’s Walk about the Art of the Danforth, I went to hear Gord. Too bad the events were at the same time, because I would have liked the Jane’s Walk, but I don’t regret my choice.
Without hearing Gord’s talk, would I ever have suspected the notions that inspire his output? Probably not. A quick glance won’t do with these pieces, but that’s almost what they invite. Only if you take time to observe them for a while, does their energy begin to draw you in, setting up questions about how they work and why.
Much of Gord’s talk, even with the support of a diagram, went right over my head. Was I hearing a lot of New Age woo woo? Is there any real relationship between Gord’s idea of quantum physics and that of a physicist? I have my doubts and skepticism to wrestle with.
But the hours whizzed by, offering stories of a visit with Henry Moore in the 1970s, theories of cosmic order, teaching practices that release students’ creativity and information about methods in both painting and sculpture.
I was reminded of alchemists who had some rather fanciful notions about what makes the universe tick, but who nevertheless discovered much than more commonsensical people would never have dreamed up. Isaac Newton was an alchemist, after all. And shouldn’t art be powered by fanciful notions, anyway?