"Finding the Beauty in Frailty"

Painter's exhibit lays bare the 'impermanence of the body'

By Janice Ryan, Edmonton Journal

VISUAL ARTS PREVIEW

DEAN SMALE: INNER SENSE

Where: common sense Gallery, 10546 115th st.

When: View by appointment until Nov. 6; call 780-482-2685

Growing old is the great human equalizer. Regardless of education, social status or wealth, there is no escaping the fact that as time passes, the body ages. Dean Smale has always been interested in the paradox of life; the idea that things are not always as they seem. His work is largely driven by curiosity about our existence.

Inner Sense, Smale's latest exhibition of paintings and drawings (showing at Common Sense Gallery), explores the relationship between the physical body and the mind, and deals with the transformation imposed by the aging process. "As I've been getting older," says Smale, 45, "it has become more apparent to me the impermanence of the body."

Four years ago, Smale created a series of lively portraits, each painting a psychedelic swirl of bright colour. Focusing on the faces of his subjects--all friends and family --he stripped their heads of hair and let the myriad of colours express their personalities and inner character on canvas. Anatomically correct and precise in detail, they offered a celebratory peek into the subject's life.

The new work is more intense, darker in colour and mood. The portraits are approached from a scientific and pragmatic point of view:How does the body function? How are we going to fall apart?

Psychological portraiture is not a photo-realistic presentation of a person. "The work is charged and goes deeper than just their appearance. You are getting to know this person's life; it makes you think about what their experiences have been."

Smale's father, Al, stands proudly in Noble and Serious Human Action, clad only in a pair of white underwear. He is the familiar, quintessential dad, standing in the kitchen in search of his first cup of early-morning coffee. His face and body show the wear and tear of life; features somewhat asymmetrical, with their imperfections and idiosyncrasies, but nonetheless real.

Omniscient, a nude female, stands two metres high by 1.2 metres wide, the skin fluid as it maps out her body. "The nude figure is so powerful, outside of the idealized figure that we are constantly being given by the media. I'm interested in just who we are."

The oil paintings are finished with a glazing technique, laborious and time-consuming, but dramatic in effect, producing a highly reflective, glossy surface. Omniscient took Smale 1-1/2 years to complete. The work is highly rendered, almost clinical in approach, strands of hair and creases of skin detailed to reveal the subject.

Looking into the figure's eyes one might feel compelled to pause for introspective reflection: yes, the clock is ticking.

"The work is amazing," says Common Sense gallery owner Ryan Mc-Court. "You don't often see this level of technique. It's very hard work."

Indeed Smale, a full-time visual communications instructor at Medicine Hat College, has the technical precision of an Old Venetian master, each brush stroke meticulously laid down to capture an eyelid or a fold of skin.

His pen-and-ink drawings, complete with medical terms, are equally thorough; an anatomical investigation into the body, an inquiry into the inner workings of the ear, an eye or the kidneys.

© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal

[Images from top to bottom: Ode to Edo (2006), Remnant from The Unknown Masterpiece (2007), detail of Vanitas (2005), detail of Vanitas, detail of Law of the Land (2009). All works by Dean Smale.]