Andrew Dadson at Daniel Faria Gallery

Artist: Andrew Dadson

Exhibition title: Green Peace

Venue: Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto, Canada

Date: November 15, 2019 – January 18, 2020

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto

Daniel Faria Gallery is pleased to present Green Peace, a solo exhibition of new works by Andrew Dadson consisting of photography, painting, and a plant installation. In this body of work, Dadson employs the act of painting to consider the various markings humans leave upon the environment. Notions of borders and (re)framing emerge in his work as he uses the edges of the canvas, literal fences, and empty spaces to suggest an infinite expansion beyond the painted gestures that often spill over and extend those very boundaries.

Over the course of the summer months, Dadson worked within the confines of an empty lot

– the former location of a chain restaurant – in Vancouver, British Columbia. This seemingly starved landscape of gravel and rubble is now the resilient home to various unplanted species, or “weeds,” and in turn, new ecosystems. As seen in the large-scale inkjet prints Black Medic (Medicago lupulina) Orange and Black Medic (Medicago lupulina) Blue, Dadson painted small areas of plant-life, no larger than a few inches, in ochre and indigo earth pigments to highlight and celebrate the plant species that have taken up residence there. The green and leafy perimeter creates an arbitrary border amid the indefinite, while the painted section acts as a marker of a fleeting moment in the shifting landscape. The resulting images become emblematic of the determination of nature and remind us that without human intervention, wildlife will continue to thrive.

The paintings in Green Peace look to natural processes and cycles through gestures that mimic those very motions. Repeating brushstrokes on canvas eventually form geographical identifiers: undulating currents, clusters of islands, spherical planets, and ambiguous terrains. Pushing the parameters of painting, Dadson also tests the medium’s physical and emotional limits. Paint is scraped, spread, dripped, layered and erased as it hardens and cements, coats and obscures. These layers, movements and obscurities offer an alternative lens through which we can view the environment, where visibility only conveys a partial story.

In House Plants (2017-19), domesticated plants of predominantly tropical varieties, are re-housed inside the gallery. The potted plants are able to thrive as a result of the artificial sunlight provided by pink ultraviolet grow-lights. The plants are coated in white, biodegradable earth pigments, and over the course of the exhibition they will begin to outgrow their painted boundaries. As the paint splinters and falls to the plinth, new green shoots and leaves liberate themselves. Here, we witness the perseverance of nature within the confines of both the paint and the gallery walls.

The title Green Peace evokes an ideology whose mission pushes towards environmental activism. Dadson aligns himself with this by focusing on temporal natural processes such as plant growth, rippling tides and cycling moons, in addition to human-made marks. These marks scar and shift the landscape, leaving us to consider what a sustainable earthly future might involve, and what shifting and unassuming landscapes can reveal to us.

Andrew Dadson (b. 1980) graduated from Emily Carr University of Art + Design in 2003 and currently lives and works in Vancouver. Dadson has exhibited widely in solo and group exhibitions most recently at Unit 17, Vancouver (2019), 313 Art Project, Korea (2019), Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver (2017), Polygon Gallery, Vancouver (2017), Galleria Franco Noero, Turin (2017) and as part of Art Parcours, Basel (2016). Dadson is currently a finalist for the The Artisti per Frescobaldi Art Prize 2020 held in Tuscany, Italy.

Andrew Dadson, Green Peace, 2019, exhibition view, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto

Andrew Dadson, Black Medic and Foxtail Barley (Medicago lupulina and Hordeum jubatum) Pink, 2019, wild clover, barley, milk paint (water, cassein, chalk, limestone, earth pigments, cochineal), Inkjet print mounted on dibond, 58 1/2 x 74 1/2 inches

Andrew Dadson,, Islands, 2019, Oil, oil pastel, sand and acrylic on linen, 80 x 60 inches

Andrew Dadson, Green Peace, 2019, exhibition view, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto

Andrew Dadson,, Magenta Grey White Restretch, 2019, Oil, sand and acrylic on linen, 16 x 13 inches

Andrew Dadson, Blue Pink White Restretch, 2019, Oil, sand and acrylic on linen, 16 x 13 inches

Andrew Dadson, Green Peace, 2019, exhibition view, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto

Andrew Dadson, Waves IIII III, 2019, Oil, oil pastel, sand and acrylic on linen, 80 x 60 inches

Andrew Dadson, Green Peace, 2019, exhibition view, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto

Andrew Dadson, Magenta White Restretch, 2019, Oil, sand and acrylic on linen, 17 x 14 inches

Andrew Dadson, Green Peace, 2019, exhibition view, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto

Andrew Dadson, Black Medic (Medicago lupulina) Blue, 2019, Wild Clover, Milk Paint (Water, Cassein, Chalk, Limestone, Earth Pigments, Indigo), Inkjet print mounted on dibond, 71 1/2 x 53 1/2 inches

Andrew Dadson, Black Medic (Medicago lupulina) Orange, 2019, Wild Clover, Milk Paint (Water, Cassein, Chalk, Limestone, Earth Pigments, Ochre, Cochineal), Inkjet print mounted on dibond, 71 1/2 x 53 1/2 inches

Andrew Dadson, Green Peace, 2019, exhibition view, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto

Andrew Dadson, Sea Wave IIII, 2019, Oil, oil pastel, sand and acrylic on linen, 19 1/4 x 14 1/4 inches

Andrew Dadson, House Plants, 2017-2019, Rubber Tree, Yucca, Monstera, Snake Plant, Red Yucca, clay pots, milk paint (water, cassein, chalk, limestone, earth pigments), grow lights, Dimensions variable

Andrew Dadson, Green Peace, 2019, exhibition view, Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto

Andrew Dadson,, Wave Blue IIII, 2019, Oil, oil pastel, sand and acrylic on linen, 24 1/4 x 18 inches