Monte Clark

September 21 to October 26, 2013

Cervante’s Don Quixote could be the most influential novel that has rarely been read word for word, beginning to end. Even Orson Welles ultimately found Don Quixote too ambitious, and his film based on the book—a sea of comical mishaps that occur when Quixote and Sancho Panza encounter modern technology— was never completed. In Graham Gillmore’s exhibition Lov Sic he explores the ways in which the modern human experience has remained fundamentally consistent with that of Cervante’s 17th century hero.

Like the theme of Don Quixote, Gillmore’s practice explores the conflict between reality and fantasy: the fluctuating battle between achieving self-fulfillment and the sobering effects of reality. Sometimes, these two sides are indistinguishable; is the swimmer waving or drowning?

These works operate within a complex set of connections and disconnections. The threat of loss or non meaning within their production reaches for resolution, but intentionally falls short. By acknowledging his fallibility, Gillmore hopes to remind us that at the end of the day we should all be pleasantly exhausted by the weight of our own transcendence. In his artwork, Gillmore has always addressed subjects of personal experience rather than tackling any particular theme strategically. For him, the tail wags the dog, and for us, we see through his subjective explorations a poignant reflection of universal experience.

Graham Gillmore’s work is collected by the Museum of Modern Art, the Ghent Museum, Gian Enzo Sperone, the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, RCA Records, The Royal Bank of Canada, the Vancouver Art Gallery, and numerous other institutions worldwide. He has been featured in publications such as Canadian Art, W Magazine, Art News, ArtForum, L.A. Weekly, C Magazine, and the New York Times Magazine. He lives and works in Winlaw, BC and New York, NY.