Installation shots of my show in Vancouver at the Jennifer Kostuik Gallery

Vocal.

New print to be released next week. Final color corrections and test strips done. This print will be featured in Art Miami, December 4th- 9th with the Jennifer Kostuik Gallery

VISUAL ARTS

WATERMARK: NEW DRAWINGS BY CURTIS CUTSHAW

To create his dynamic, poetically-charged works, Curtis Cutshaw attaches a string to a dowsing rod and then a pen to the end of the string. Walking over ground he finds water, deep below the surface, and then the pen moves, creating his drawings. He describes the process as a search for feeling. "Each drawing gives a presence," he writes.

Opening reception, Thursday, 5 - 8: 30 p.m. (with artist talk 7 p.m.); show runs to Nov. 11 Jennifer Kostuik Gallery

Vancouver Sun October 2012

Opening day in Vancouver. If you are in the area it would be great if you could stop by and say hi. Jennifer Kostuik Gallery, Yaletown 5-8:30.

Tomorrow Barb and I leave for beautiful Vancouver. My solo show opens Thursday night at Jennifer Kostuik Gallery. I will be giving an artist talk about my work, the origins of it, my thought process on my unique approach and why I make the work I do. Looking forward to seeing the wonderful people of Vancouver and enjoying all that the city has to offer.

YALETOWN EVENTS

• October 18, 2012
  WATERMARK by Curtis Cutshaw Opens Oct 18th at Jennifer Kostuik Gallery
  More Info »
• October 25, 2012
  Shake Up Yaletown
  More Info »

View Events Calendar »

WATERMARK BY CURTIS CUTSHAW OPENS OCT 18TH AT JENNIFER KOSTUIK GALLERY

Start:

October 18, 2012 5:00 pm

End:

October 18, 2012 8:30 pm

Venue:

Jennifer Kostuik Gallery

Phone:

(604) 737-3969

Address:
Google Map

1070 Homer Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada, V6B2W9

Opening night Oct 18th 5:00-8:30pm
Artist Talk begins at 7:00pm

Like a seismograph, Curtis Cutshaw attaches a string to a dowsing rod and then a pen to the end of the string. Walking over ground he finds water, deep below the surface. He describes the process as a search for feeling, a movement. When it is found, the pen moves creating the line.

It is the push and pull of the reaction his dowsing rod brings to form a drawing. The motion of his steps interacts with the movement of the pen; if he stops walking, so stops the line. It becomes a delicate balance between nature and the hand. From drawing, to computer scan, to archival print on photographic paper the image transforms to something entirely organic and otherworldly.

To view all the works from Watermark 2012, Pull 2011 or, Blindspot 2006, visit his artist page on our web site: Jennifer Kostuik Gallery

Just over one week till my opening in Vancouver at the Jennifer Kostuik Gallery.
The work is being framed and will soon be ready for preview at the gallery.

Vocal

New Dowsing Rod Print. Watermark series 2012 Curtis Cutshaw

I have always been interested in outside influence in my work. Bringing in something to react to or deal with. Something outside my control. When I was a student I used to go to the hardware store and buy mistints. I would then return to my studio and paint with whatever paint they had there. The choice of colour was removed. Greens, pinks, browns, yellows. Colours I would not normally use in my work. A lot of the time colours that would not necessarily go together or colours that were not what one should put together. I created a problem of making a painting work while removing personal choice. Artists have always selected colour, image and content based on the personal. Removing some or all of that has been something I have always been interested in and it is something that has reoccurred throughout my career. Taking my personal choice out of the equation to different extents. With the Dowsing Rod series I have fully embraced this and found my work going in directions it would not go if I had relied on the personal alone. Monet chose to paint hay stacks. I remember deKooning talking about how it was not a brilliant idea to paint hay stacks. This got me thinking about the choices we make as painters and how we come to the conclusions we do. My interest to remove some of my choice has taken my art in directions that are not the personal. I have said before that where my hand would naturally go left the dowsing rod went right. This is not the accidental. I am then left to react to the mark made and this can be difficult when the eye is involved. After years and years of studying Art History and the story of painting we are very aware of the ladder of Art. Why one artist sits at a certain level and another either higher or lower.
 Francis Bacon's work had the accidental or as he would say the total removal of the accidental. Paint was left to do what it would but there was still the personal in that the image could either be destroyed or reworked until it met with the approval of the artist eye. Is art good if the artist eye is removed? To what extent can we remove the artists eye and it still be good? Or still be art? Can the artist leave a picture unfinished or off balance? How can the artist resist the temptation to correct? Will it be seen as the artist not getting this one right? Or is the off balance piece the strongest of all? The most true of all? The most honest of all? In my latest body of work there is one piece in particular that embraces this notion. The work is off balance and not quite right. It for me is a direction that is both risky and at the same time one that is taking my work to a new level.