After Escher, a group show presented by the Yukon Artists at Work co-op gallery (YAAW) is coming in February at the Fourth Avenue location, starting Feb. 2. The show is the brainchild of Linda Leon, a member of YAAW and an enthusiastic fan of the late printmaker and Dutch artist, Maurits Cornelis Escher.
“He was extraordinary: he really made you think about his work and rethink how you look at things. He is very fun,” said Leon. She had a chance to be fully immersed in his work back in 2018 during a trip in Melbourne, Australia. “The National Gallery had a large show about Escher’s work, and we spent at least three hours in there [with] people waiting one hour just to get in. It was very well attended. It blew my mind.”
The Dutch graphic artist is most famously known for his prints featuring strong optical illusions resulting in impossible images where the viewer is being questioned on what they are really seeing.
Queried about it, Escher had a clever explanation: “If you want to express something impossible, you must keep to certain rules.”
His rules were mathematics, a powerful influence on his art. The use of tessellation, a repetitive pattern of interlocking objects, is a defining aspect of Escher’s work, as well as the use of curvilinear perspective and hyperbolic geometry.
His art career spanned for several decades starting in the mid-1920s to the early ’70s, when he died at age 73. Not a mathematician by training, his understanding of mathematical concepts and how to apply them to his art came from a strong visual intuition that very few artists could equal. “I think he was both mathematician and artist. He was just being a brat not saying he was an artist,” said Leon about Escher, who did not always want to be seen as such. He viewed his work as graphic rather than fully artistic.
Back home, after her trip to Australia, Leon watched a documentary about his work and life. Still captured, the idea of putting together a local show around Escher’s work started to form. A call to all current members of the artist collective took place in December to create artwork inspired by Escher.
“Expect to see work inspired by him but in our artists’ own disciplines—painting, mix-media, assemblage. My own work is about two hours away to be completed,” said Leon, speaking in early January about her acrylic painting titled Seeking Open Water. The 24- x 48-inch canvas depicts birds looking for open water in spring migration, an idea that is dear to Leon.
“I have done river images all my life. It is a theme and there is something to do with the Yukon River, too.” The birds are interlocking, alternating bright colours and darker ones, playing with negative spaces between the birds à la Escher. “I had to step away to check what I am doing. Where the illusion is going to make it right, you lose it by working too close.”
In addition to the gallery members’ contributions, the show will present an original poem by Arlin McFarlane, inspired by Escher’s work and life. To the invitation of Leon, McFarlane agreed to have “Thought Pockets Some Small Change” as part of the show. “Arlin wrote that poem a long time ago, as a young woman, [while] studying theatre in Victoria, B.C. I knew about it and thought it would be great to have it in the show.”
After Escher will be presented in the Solo Room at the YAAW gallery at 4129 4th Avenue in downtown Whitehorse, from Feb. 2–29, with an opening reception on Feb. 2 from 5–8 p.m. All are welcome. The show can be seen during the gallery’s regular hours, Tuesday to Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. To keep up with YAAW’s latest projects and shows, visit yaaw.com.
