Robert Linsley: A Geomorphic Fantasy January 14- March 20, 2011 Public Reception: Friday, January 21, 7 p.m.> Artist Talk: Thursday, January 27, 7 p.m.> View the catalogue A Geomorphic Fantasy>

Robert Linsley has devoted the last decade of his practice to exploring the intersection of abstraction and the limits of representation. Inspired in part by the discoveries and trajectory of thinking practiced by theoretical physicists, Linsley creates pictures that invite us to be flexible in our thinking, to break our own rules of what and who makes a painting and whether or not we can be place limits on a painting's subjectivity.

This exhibition will feature a selection of Linsley's large "poured island" paintings and a more recent selection of small watercolours. Though Linsley's attention is largely focused on abstraction, these paintings also spur us to revisit the allegorical potential of islands and Pangea - the prehistoric single continent that broke apart to give us the continents we recognize today. Linsley's exhibition is complemented by an online publication featuring an essay by Dr. Richard Shiff, Professor and Director for the Center for the Study of Modernism at the University of Texas.

About Robert Linsley

Kitchener-based Robert Linsley spent many years in Vancouver where he exhibited at the Vancouver Art Gallery, Contemporary Art Gallery, Artspeak, Presentation House and the Catriona Jeffries Gallery. Linsley's work has been exhibited in solo shows in Düsseldorf, Barcelona, Berlin and Toronto, and in group exhibitions in Rome, Kitchener, Portland and New York. Linsley is also an accomplished writer and has written for venues and publications across the world. He is currently finishing two books: a history of art in British Columbia from colonial times to the present and an account of his recent Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) sponsored research.

Robert Linsley has devoted the last decade of his practice to exploring the intersection of abstraction and the limits of representation. Inspired in part by the discoveries and trajectory of thinking practiced by theoretical physicists, Linsley creates what he refers to as "a series of breaks or transitions that enable negation inside the work, and therefore outside of the current painting discourse in which meaning is often restored through conceptuality."

Robert Linsley, Aeon 2, 2002-03, enamel, alkyd on canvas, 72" x 60", courtesy of the artist.