Steve Gouthro

Channeling One’s Energy – Trying to get more than one station

Work ID: 6312

Measurements: 44.45 x 64.77 cm

Collection: Canada Council Art Bank, Ottawa

Date Made: 1978

Materials: lithograph

Virtual Collection: Original CCCA

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Relatives – Floating Between the Doors

Work ID: 6313

Measurements: 53.34 x 36.83 cm

Collection:

Date Made: 1979

Materials: lithograph

Virtual Collection: Original CCCA

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The Shortest Way is not Always the Quickest

Work ID: 6315

Measurements: 43.18 x 55.88 cm

Collection:

Date Made: 1980

Materials: lithograph

Virtual Collection: Original CCCA

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At an Uncontrolled Intersection

Work ID: 6314

Measurements: 43.18 x 55.88 cm

Collection:

Date Made: 1980

Materials: lithograph

Virtual Collection: Original CCCA

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Tangents

Work ID: 6317

Measurements: 60.96 x 91.44 cm

Collection:

Date Made: 1983

Materials: oil on canvas

Virtual Collection: Original CCCA

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A Near Collision

Work ID: 6316

Measurements: 91.44 x 91.44 cm

Collection:

Date Made: 1983

Materials: oil on canvas

Virtual Collection: Original CCCA

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Centrifugal Pink

Work ID: 6318

Measurements: 60.96 x 91.44 cm

Collection:

Date Made: 1983

Materials: oil on canvas

Virtual Collection: Original CCCA

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Work ID: 6337

Description: From the exhibition: "Undergrowth and Open Water".

Collection:

Date Made: 1988

Materials: oil on canvas

Virtual Collection: Original CCCA

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Drowned Pontiac, (detail)

Work ID: 6342

Description: From the exhibition: "Undergrowth and Open Water".

Collection:

Date Made: 1988

Materials: oil on canvas

Virtual Collection: Original CCCA

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Drowned Pontiac

Work ID: 6341

Description: From the exhibition: "Undergrowth and Open Water".

Measurements: 172.72 x 203.2 cm

Collection:

Date Made: 1988

Materials: oil on canvas

Virtual Collection: Original CCCA

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Work ID: 6347

Description: From the exhibition: 'Gazing Into the Dark Pool'.

Artist's Statement

For the show 'Gazing Into the Dark Pool', each of the six paintings explores a different aspect of death on either a personal or cultural level, some- times both.

In each work I have tried to achieve a focus and intensity of vision that allows the participant to respond to it with the clarity of a dream or the presence of a memory. I want the eye to move from one subject to another as the mind moves among images and thoughts.

The triptych Wood and Stone portrays the earliest transformations of the environment from a natural one to a cultural one, and the assimilation of external forms and beings into the psyche. Humans are buried with ceremony and dignity, and Nature's creatures become symbols of the human aspiration for eternity.

The Birth of Astrology is a commentary on the conversion of the awe in which we held the heavenly firmament into the ordered relationship that eventually formed the basis of modern science. Astrology is an attempt to find a meaningful unity in birth and death, to make sense of events that all to often seem arbitrary and chaotic.

The six canvases of Vestiges of the TITANIC present different views of the remaining relics of the once 'unsinkable' vessel. Until its recent discovery the wreckage of the Titanic was more a legend than a reality. The probe into its watery grave became an obsession for its seekers, which took them to the outside limits of the habitable environment and back in time to another era. For those of us living in a materialistic society, this may be as close to death as we are permitted to go, and for this reason the Titanic holds a special fascination. There is of course also the morbid curiosity which other people's disasters hold for many of us (fires, car accidents), and the Titanic is one of the biggest and most famous of these.

Two of the large canvases, Resurrectionists and Archaeologists hang close together and offer visual commentary on one another. Resurrectionists is a painting of 18th c. grave robbers forced to work at night to obtain cadavers for medical study. (The term 'resurrectionist' was a cynical contemporary commentary on this little loved profession.) Archaeologists depicts the modern desecration of the graves of another culture in broad daylight in order to satisfy the craving to better know others.

Looking for the Black Box deals with a different form of curiosity. Here is a quiet winter scene, with the fragments of a large passenger plane and a search party in a Breugelesque landscape. (Inspired in fact by The Hunters in the Snow.) This is a more immediate and visceral experience than the remote and legendary TITANIC which has become an archetype of the unconscious. Fears of plane crashes are a part of everyone's life. The black box with its recordings of the cockpit conversations offers us hope of an answer.

Collection:

Date Made: 1989

Materials: oil on canvas

Virtual Collection: Original CCCA

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Looking Back at Child’s

Work ID: 6366

Measurements: 109.22 x 152.4 cm

Collection:

Date Made: 1989

Materials: oil on canvas

Virtual Collection: Original CCCA

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Venus & Fleurs

Work ID: 6354

Description: From 'The Recovery of History.

Artist's Statement

The group as a whole depicts members of European culture in situations where the symbolic or mythological figures from their own pasts, or other belief systems seem to come to life. This is an attempt to bring home the reality that other belief systems have for their adherents by imposing it into the viewer's own experience. At the same time it is meant to make the audience question the validity of its own basic assumptions.

In Mme. Curie in Mexico on the Day of the Dead I imagined that the scientist who had been exposed for so many years to radio- activity might "see through" her fellow humans. By setting this during the Mexican religious holiday, a wry commentary on the ephemeral qualities of existence is made, as well as a reminder of the Medieval European tradition of the Dance of Death, or Death and the Maiden.

The modern Oedipus is still blind, and confounded by the Sphinx, who in her Las Vegas incarnation looks as much show girl as ancient symbol. This is intended as a tongue-in-cheek commentary on the twentieth century materialistic obsession with sex even into old age, to the detriment of psychic or spiritual growth.

In Elijah Harper Meets General Wolfe the cultural relation is inverted. Here we meet the Aboriginal MLA in symbolic conflict with a statue of General Wolfe from one of the entrances to the Manitoba Legislature - the site of Harper's gesture of defiance to the national government on behalf of his own people and the many other Canadians. Harper's spiritual symbol, the eagle feather eclipses the sword of the general who at the Plains of Abraham effectively conquered Canada. This powerful pacifistic gesture evokes the old saying "the pen is mightier than the sword."

Each drawing is a foray into this same world where objects and events are filtered through the fluid mind and juxtaposed to become something else.

Measurements: 55.88 x 76.2 cm

Collection:

Date Made: 1989

Materials: pen and ink

Virtual Collection: Original CCCA

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Work ID: 6349

Description: From the exhibition: 'Gazing Into the Dark Pool'.

Artist's Statement

For the show 'Gazing Into the Dark Pool', each of the six paintings explores a different aspect of death on either a personal or cultural level, some- times both.

In each work I have tried to achieve a focus and intensity of vision that allows the participant to respond to it with the clarity of a dream or the presence of a memory. I want the eye to move from one subject to another as the mind moves among images and thoughts.

The triptych Wood and Stone portrays the earliest transformations of the environment from a natural one to a cultural one, and the assimilation of external forms and beings into the psyche. Humans are buried with ceremony and dignity, and Nature's creatures become symbols of the human aspiration for eternity.

The Birth of Astrology is a commentary on the conversion of the awe in which we held the heavenly firmament into the ordered relationship that eventually formed the basis of modern science. Astrology is an attempt to find a meaningful unity in birth and death, to make sense of events that all to often seem arbitrary and chaotic.

The six canvases of Vestiges of the TITANIC present different views of the remaining relics of the once 'unsinkable' vessel. Until its recent discovery the wreckage of the Titanic was more a legend than a reality. The probe into its watery grave became an obsession for its seekers, which took them to the outside limits of the habitable environment and back in time to another era. For those of us living in a materialistic society, this may be as close to death as we are permitted to go, and for this reason the Titanic holds a special fascination. There is of course also the morbid curiosity which other people's disasters hold for many of us (fires, car accidents), and the Titanic is one of the biggest and most famous of these.

Two of the large canvases, Resurrectionists and Archaeologists hang close together and offer visual commentary on one another. Resurrectionists is a painting of 18th c. grave robbers forced to work at night to obtain cadavers for medical study. (The term 'resurrectionist' was a cynical contemporary commentary on this little loved profession.) Archaeologists depicts the modern desecration of the graves of another culture in broad daylight in order to satisfy the craving to better know others.

Looking for the Black Box deals with a different form of curiosity. Here is a quiet winter scene, with the fragments of a large passenger plane and a search party in a Breugelesque landscape. (Inspired in fact by The Hunters in the Snow.) This is a more immediate and visceral experience than the remote and legendary TITANIC which has become an archetype of the unconscious. Fears of plane crashes are a part of everyone's life. The black box with its recordings of the cockpit conversations offers us hope of an answer.

Collection:

Date Made: 1989

Materials: oil on canvas

Virtual Collection: Original CCCA

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The Birth of Astrology

Work ID: 6343

Description: From the exhibition: 'Gazing Into the Dark Pool'.

Artist's Statement

For the show 'Gazing Into the Dark Pool', each of the six paintings explores a different aspect of death on either a personal or cultural level, some- times both.

In each work I have tried to achieve a focus and intensity of vision that allows the participant to respond to it with the clarity of a dream or the presence of a memory. I want the eye to move from one subject to another as the mind moves among images and thoughts.

The triptych Wood and Stone portrays the earliest transformations of the environment from a natural one to a cultural one, and the assimilation of external forms and beings into the psyche. Humans are buried with ceremony and dignity, and Nature's creatures become symbols of the human aspiration for eternity.

The Birth of Astrology is a commentary on the conversion of the awe in which we held the heavenly firmament into the ordered relationship that eventually formed the basis of modern science. Astrology is an attempt to find a meaningful unity in birth and death, to make sense of events that all to often seem arbitrary and chaotic.

The six canvases of Vestiges of the TITANIC present different views of the remaining relics of the once 'unsinkable' vessel. Until its recent discovery the wreckage of the Titanic was more a legend than a reality. The probe into its watery grave became an obsession for its seekers, which took them to the outside limits of the habitable environment and back in time to another era. For those of us living in a materialistic society, this may be as close to death as we are permitted to go, and for this reason the Titanic holds a special fascination. There is of course also the morbid curiosity which other people's disasters hold for many of us (fires, car accidents), and the Titanic is one of the biggest and most famous of these.

Two of the large canvases, Resurrectionists and Archaeologists hang close together and offer visual commentary on one another. Resurrectionists is a painting of 18th c. grave robbers forced to work at night to obtain cadavers for medical study. (The term 'resurrectionist' was a cynical contemporary commentary on this little loved profession.) Archaeologists depicts the modern desecration of the graves of another culture in broad daylight in order to satisfy the craving to better know others.

Looking for the Black Box deals with a different form of curiosity. Here is a quiet winter scene, with the fragments of a large passenger plane and a search party in a Breugelesque landscape. (Inspired in fact by The Hunters in the Snow.) This is a more immediate and visceral experience than the remote and legendary TITANIC which has become an archetype of the unconscious. Fears of plane crashes are a part of everyone's life. The black box with its recordings of the cockpit conversations offers us hope of an answer.

Measurements: 81.28 x 83.82 cm

Collection:

Date Made: 1989

Materials: oil on canvas

Virtual Collection: Original CCCA

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Oedipus in Old Age

Work ID: 6353

Description: From 'The Recovery of History.

Artist's Statement

The group as a whole depicts members of European culture in situations where the symbolic or mythological figures from their own pasts, or other belief systems seem to come to life. This is an attempt to bring home the reality that other belief systems have for their adherents by imposing it into the viewer's own experience. At the same time it is meant to make the audience question the validity of its own basic assumptions.

In Mme. Curie in Mexico on the Day of the Dead I imagined that the scientist who had been exposed for so many years to radio- activity might "see through" her fellow humans. By setting this during the Mexican religious holiday, a wry commentary on the ephemeral qualities of existence is made, as well as a reminder of the Medieval European tradition of the Dance of Death, or Death and the Maiden.

The modern Oedipus is still blind, and confounded by the Sphinx, who in her Las Vegas incarnation looks as much show girl as ancient symbol. This is intended as a tongue-in-cheek commentary on the twentieth century materialistic obsession with sex even into old age, to the detriment of psychic or spiritual growth.

In Elijah Harper Meets General Wolfe the cultural relation is inverted. Here we meet the Aboriginal MLA in symbolic conflict with a statue of General Wolfe from one of the entrances to the Manitoba Legislature - the site of Harper's gesture of defiance to the national government on behalf of his own people and the many other Canadians. Harper's spiritual symbol, the eagle feather eclipses the sword of the general who at the Plains of Abraham effectively conquered Canada. This powerful pacifistic gesture evokes the old saying "the pen is mightier than the sword."

Each drawing is a foray into this same world where objects and events are filtered through the fluid mind and juxtaposed to become something else.

Measurements: 55.88 x 76.2 cm

Collection:

Date Made: 1989

Materials: pen and ink

Virtual Collection: Original CCCA

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Looking for the Black Box, (detail)

Work ID: 6352

Description: From the exhibition: 'Gazing Into the Dark Pool'.

Artist's Statement

For the show 'Gazing Into the Dark Pool', each of the six paintings explores a different aspect of death on either a personal or cultural level, some- times both.

In each work I have tried to achieve a focus and intensity of vision that allows the participant to respond to it with the clarity of a dream or the presence of a memory. I want the eye to move from one subject to another as the mind moves among images and thoughts.

The triptych Wood and Stone portrays the earliest transformations of the environment from a natural one to a cultural one, and the assimilation of external forms and beings into the psyche. Humans are buried with ceremony and dignity, and Nature's creatures become symbols of the human aspiration for eternity.

The Birth of Astrology is a commentary on the conversion of the awe in which we held the heavenly firmament into the ordered relationship that eventually formed the basis of modern science. Astrology is an attempt to find a meaningful unity in birth and death, to make sense of events that all to often seem arbitrary and chaotic.

The six canvases of Vestiges of the TITANIC present different views of the remaining relics of the once 'unsinkable' vessel. Until its recent discovery the wreckage of the Titanic was more a legend than a reality. The probe into its watery grave became an obsession for its seekers, which took them to the outside limits of the habitable environment and back in time to another era. For those of us living in a materialistic society, this may be as close to death as we are permitted to go, and for this reason the Titanic holds a special fascination. There is of course also the morbid curiosity which other people's disasters hold for many of us (fires, car accidents), and the Titanic is one of the biggest and most famous of these.

Two of the large canvases, Resurrectionists and Archaeologists hang close together and offer visual commentary on one another. Resurrectionists is a painting of 18th c. grave robbers forced to work at night to obtain cadavers for medical study. (The term 'resurrectionist' was a cynical contemporary commentary on this little loved profession.) Archaeologists depicts the modern desecration of the graves of another culture in broad daylight in order to satisfy the craving to better know others.

Looking for the Black Box deals with a different form of curiosity. Here is a quiet winter scene, with the fragments of a large passenger plane and a search party in a Breugelesque landscape. (Inspired in fact by The Hunters in the Snow.) This is a more immediate and visceral experience than the remote and legendary TITANIC which has become an archetype of the unconscious. Fears of plane crashes are a part of everyone's life. The black box with its recordings of the cockpit conversations offers us hope of an answer.

Collection:

Date Made: 1989

Materials: oil on canvas

Virtual Collection: Original CCCA

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BUILDING, (detail 3 of 3)

Work ID: 6363

Collection:

Date Made: 1990

Materials: oil on canvas

Virtual Collection: Original CCCA

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BUILDING, (detail 2 of 3)

Work ID: 6362

Collection:

Date Made: 1990

Materials: oil on canvas

Virtual Collection: Original CCCA

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Measurements: 109.22 x 152.4 cm

Collection:

Date Made: 1990

Materials: oil on canvas

Virtual Collection: Original CCCA

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Napoleon in Egypt

Work ID: 6357

Description: From 'The Recovery of History.

Artist's Statement

The group as a whole depicts members of European culture in situations where the symbolic or mythological figures from their own pasts, or other belief systems seem to come to life. This is an attempt to bring home the reality that other belief systems have for their adherents by imposing it into the viewer's own experience. At the same time it is meant to make the audience question the validity of its own basic assumptions.

In Mme. Curie in Mexico on the Day of the Dead I imagined that the scientist who had been exposed for so many years to radio- activity might "see through" her fellow humans. By setting this during the Mexican religious holiday, a wry commentary on the ephemeral qualities of existence is made, as well as a reminder of the Medieval European tradition of the Dance of Death, or Death and the Maiden.

The modern Oedipus is still blind, and confounded by the Sphinx, who in her Las Vegas incarnation looks as much show girl as ancient symbol. This is intended as a tongue-in-cheek commentary on the twentieth century materialistic obsession with sex even into old age, to the detriment of psychic or spiritual growth.

In Elijah Harper Meets General Wolfe the cultural relation is inverted. Here we meet the Aboriginal MLA in symbolic conflict with a statue of General Wolfe from one of the entrances to the Manitoba Legislature - the site of Harper's gesture of defiance to the national government on behalf of his own people and the many other Canadians. Harper's spiritual symbol, the eagle feather eclipses the sword of the general who at the Plains of Abraham effectively conquered Canada. This powerful pacifistic gesture evokes the old saying "the pen is mightier than the sword."

Each drawing is a foray into this same world where objects and events are filtered through the fluid mind and juxtaposed to become something else.

Measurements: 55.88 x 76.2 cm

Collection:

Date Made: 1990

Materials: pen and ink

Virtual Collection: Original CCCA

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O Fortuna

Work ID: 6364

Measurements: 297.18 x 533.4 cm

Collection:

Date Made: 1992

Materials: ink on paper

Virtual Collection: Original CCCA

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Work ID: 6386

Description: Artist's Statement
Adaptation Strategies Among Amphibians and Reptiles -- Waves explores an interest in artifice and nature. The turtle depicted, painted from a rubber model, is given a life-like character in translation. The wave pattern is based on a scrap of marbled paper, reproduced flaws and all. In creating the original, the marbler uses various pigments and tools to arrive at an organic, harmonious surface. The surface of my interpretation combines optical vibration with a physical presence achievable only through the painstaking application of oil paint by hand.

Measurements: 69.85 x 69.85 cm

Collection:

Date Made: 1995

Materials: oil on canvas

Virtual Collection: Original CCCA

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Ellice Afternoon

Work ID: 6368

Measurements: 109.22 x 152.4 cm

Collection:

Date Made: 1996

Materials: oil on canvas

Virtual Collection: Original CCCA

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Standing Waves

Work ID: 6379

Measurements: 27.94 x 35.56 cm

Collection:

Date Made: 1997

Materials: watercolour and marbling on paper

Virtual Collection: Original CCCA

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Work ID: 6392

Collection:

Date Made: 1997

Materials: oil on canvas

Virtual Collection: Original CCCA

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Rain Forest Floor

Work ID: 6382

Measurements: 35.56 x 27.94 cm

Collection:

Date Made: 1997

Materials: watercolour and marbling on paper

Virtual Collection: Original CCCA

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Chaotic Green

Work ID: 6380

Measurements: 27.94 x 35.56 cm

Collection:

Date Made: 1997

Materials: watercolour and marbling on paper

Virtual Collection: Original CCCA

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The Copper Wall

Work ID: 6376

Measurements: 35.56 x 30.48 cm

Collection:

Date Made: 1997

Materials: watercolour on drypoint

Virtual Collection: Original CCCA

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Serenade

Work ID: 6390

Description: Artist's Statement
Although I am primarily seen as a realist, in many ways I identify with abstract pattern painters such as Bridgette Riley or Guido Molinari. However, it is in the divergences from the ideal, the 'imperfections' in nature and the deviations that occur in my translation from the source that my work gains its visual power. The painting, Serenade, combines the rigid structure of the cut stone, and its complex natural textures, with the expressive gesture of the artist's hand to yield a pattern that suggests the music which the god, Apollo, uses to woo his human admirer.

Measurements: 152.4 x 182.88 cm

Collection:

Date Made: 1997

Materials: oil on canvas

Virtual Collection: Original CCCA

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