Dennis Reid, “A Concise History of Canadian Painting”, third edition, Toronto, 2012, page 375.
Peter Mellen, “Landmarks of Canadian Art”, Toronto, 1978, page 240.
David Burnett, “Iskowitz”, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, 1982, page 72.
International recognition came for Iskowitz when he was selected to represent Canada at the Venice Biennale in 1972. By 1976, his paintings were comprised of magnificent vivid shapes in contrasting tones, scattered upon laboriously painted surfaces. Dennis Reid describes the artist's process: “Iskowitz worked only at night under artificial light, in oils...He would build up a picture slowly, applying a colour, then when it had dried, applying another over it, leaving only parts of the previous layers exposed, thinly veiling others, or obscuring some parts entirely...”
Iskowitz drew on his personal recollections of experiences with landscape for his work, explaining that he would take “...the experience, out in the field, of looking up in the trees or in the sky, of looking down from the height of a helicopter. So what you try to do is make a composition of all those things, make some kind of reality...That's painting.” The Canadian landscape provided him with striking patterns and vistas which emerged through tiers of scattered clouds below.
“October #2” exemplifies the artist's unique manipulation of colour harmonies, textures and patterns. The painting reveals the moment at which “the landscape, the imagination, and the memory of experiences are united...”
