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MIKE SMALLEY
Red Barn #1, 2011
Pastel on Paper
20 x 30 inches

Mike Smalley reaches beyond the realm of mere abstraction to create his own personal lexicon. His work thrives on the juxtaposition of opposites. Abstract shapes are graphic and piercing, utterly masculine in style; yet the background melts softly into infinity, reminding us that nothing is absolute. Nature thrives upon a delicate balance of opposites.
Influenced by the mid-century American Abstract Expressionist movement, Smalley’s aggressive strokes serve as the soul of the canvas. Like one of the movement leaders Clyfford Sill, Smalley provides us with jagged flashes of color. There is a sense of violence in much of the work. It appears as though pockets of color have been torn from the canvas, creating a dynamic patchwork.
Smalley’s studio in Muskoka, Ontario, provides a vast sink of inspiration. His depiction of a “living” environment in flux appears cracked, broken and then resurrected. Rocks cut from the rough Canadian Shield undergo a metamorphosis beneath jostling waves. Grass cut by various shades of light bristles in the wind. The horizon peels into the water as the sun dips down for twilight. In Smalley’s ethos on the canvas, shapes are pinched and cracked. As with cubism, we see the whole from multiple perspectives, learning how the pieces interact: a shadow from a rock is cut into the grass, creating a rough gouge. By fragmenting the landscape and disassociating the shapes from one another, Smalley pieces it back into a more perfect whole.