Urban Animals Urban Animals - Art Gallery of Alberta

Jason Carter
Wolf and Moon, 2012
Acrylic on canvas
Collection of the artist
Jason Carter
Mother Bear and her Cub,
2012
Acrylic on canvas
Collection of the artist
Jason Carter
The Prairie Dogs on the open
road, 2012
Acrylic on canvas
Collection of the artist
Jason Carter is a contemporary Aboriginal artist. Primarily concerned
with representing the environment and the wild kingdom, he does so
within the tenets of modernism that were developed throughout the
twentieth century. In writing of his practice Carter has stated:
I have fearlessly painted animals big and small. I am drawn to paint with
colours that many would not. I believe in the empty space on canvas. I believe
that colour can give us something image can not. Conversely, I enjoy
breaking down the most complex animals to the very essence of their being.
Jason Carter describes his painting style as Abstract Contemporary
Aboriginal Pop Art and the influences of both Abstraction and Pop Art are
clearly evidenced in his paintings in the exhibition Urban Animals.
Abstract painting is not a unified practice. Rather, the term
‘abstraction’ covers two distinct tendencies. The first, clearly expressed
in the work of Jason Carter, involves the reduction of natural
appearances to simplified forms. In realizing this aim reduction may lead
to the depiction of the essential or generic forms of things by
eliminating particular and accidental variations. This tendency in
abstraction is seen in the painting Wolf and Moon above. While the
viewer clearly recognises the elements in the scene the actual forms
are reduced to generic shapes: a circle for the moon, for example, and
irregular triangular shapes representing the mountain peaks.
A second aspect of modernist abstraction often seen in Carter’s work
concerns his treatment of space. Prior to the mid-twentieth century
artist’s often regarded the picture plane as a ‘window’ to the outside
world and a painting as a representation of reality. To achieve these aims
artists used linear and aerial persepective and tonal changes in colour
to create the illusions of distance, space and three dimensional form. In
modernist abstraction, however, the picture plane is often regarded as a
flat surface upon which colours and shapes are arranged. In such work
the idea of spatial illusion is rejected with the artist proclaiming to the
viewer the most basic fact that a painting is, in reality, merely paint on
a surface. In Carter’s work this reality is clearly expressed in the solitary
animals on flat coloured backgrounds.
A second art movement that has had a tremendous influence on the art
work of Jason Carter is that of Pop Art. Pop Art refers to an art movement
that began in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United
States. From the very start its imagery was largely based on American
mass media and the movement thus had a special appeal to American
artists. The Pop Art Movement reached its fullest development in America
in the 1960s.
In the United States Pop Art was initially regarded as a reaction to
Abstract Expressionism because its exponents brought back figural,
representational imagery and made use of hard-edged, quasiphotographic
techniques. While early Pop artists, such as Jasper Johns,
used the energetic brushstrokes and boldly abbreviated shapes of
Action Painting, Pop artists differ from abstract expressionists in that their
paintings are about something beyond personal symbolism and ‘painterly
looseness’. Pop artists were often labeled Neo-Dadaists because they
used commonplace subjects such as comic strips (Roy Lichtenstein), soup
tins (Andy Warhol) and highway signs which had affinities with Marcel
Duchamp’s ‘ready-mades’ of the early 20 th century.
While artists associated with the Pop Art movement are not unified in their
approaches pop art works can be generally defined by the use of simplified
imagery and bright bold colours. These elements are clearly expressed in
the imagery of Jason Carter. In the painting Mother Bear and her Cub, for
example, the animals are reduced to very basic shapes - circular forms for
heads; triangular shapes for noses; rectangular forms for legs - and are
placed upon a flat bold red background. As expressed by Carter concerning
his artistic style:
I paint because I love colour, simply love it. The feeling, the emotion that one
can get just from standing next to a large canvas that is painted in a rather
brilliant colour... is unparalleled in my opinion. We underestimate the power
of colour. As a result, I try and minimize anything that might get in the way
of colour, like an image...When I create a piece, I am aware that the image...
and the colour share the canvas. I hope people take in the colour of the piece as
much as they take in the image on the colour, because in my opinion, they are
one in the same.
Jason Carter’s paintings in the exhibition Urban Animals are most clearly
influenced by the art movements of abstraction/modernism and pop
art. The simplification and emphasis on the flatness of the picture plane,
seen in many of his works, speak to modernism while the use of bold flat
colours are a hall-mark of pop art. In his paintings, however, he also
demonstrates clear influences from the territory of Postmodernism in
the arts.
Characteristics inherent to Postmodern Art are evidenced in all of the
paintings by Jason Carter in the exhibition Urban Animals. Carter’s
emphasis on representation, simplification of forms, the introduction of
narrative, the elevation of ‘low’ art forms (illustration and comic book
elements) into the ‘high’ art realm, and the mix of modernist and pop art
concerns all mark his work as going in a different direction than either
strict modernism or Pop Art.
Also central to some of Carter’s works are the elements of irony and
humor; aspects inherent to much of post-modern art work. These
elements are expressed most clearly in the paintings The Prairie Dogs on
the open road and The Man Hole. Irony can be defined as an incongruity
between the actual result of a sequence of events and the expected result.
In The Prairie Dogs on the open road, for example, the viewer is presented
with an image of prairie dogs driving a car. While this bit of
anthropomorphism is humorous on its own, it is also ironic as, if one does
come across prairie dogs on the open road, they are most often found
under a car’s wheels rather than steering the vehicle. Carter’s intent in
creating such images is to make the viewer think clearly about both our
relationship to the world around us and our actions in this world. As stated
by the artist:
I love this series (Urban Animals) for the simple fact that it takes the ‘audience’
on a very clear journey as to what once ‘was’ to what it now ‘is’....My hope is
that it creates an awareness...that we are truly on a shared land and to value
it as such. It’s not so much the evolution of the animal in this series...but rather
the evolution of man on the animals’ land. It is my hope that we can begin
that discussion....Development is inevitable, but awareness is key in creating
consideration and a certain ‘mindfullness’ when sharing this land. I truly hope
this series gives pause to celebrate the ‘paws’ that went before us!