Untitled, 2012

Private Collection, Ontario Cowley Abbott, Toronto, auction, 9 June 2021, lot 66 Private Collection, Toronto

Contemporary painter Kim Dorland excels at creating imagery that is simultaneously abrasive and attractive. This work draws in the viewer with its varied painterly surface. Thin washes of white oil paint form a shimmering, frost-like veil over the pink ground. Dorland has engaged with long-established tropes of landscape painting, presenting a view through the trees, complete with a gently meandering stream. Dorland’s painting establishes a dichotomy between tranquility and uneasiness. The silver metallic pigments employed here take the setting away from the specific into the realm of the mythological or imagined. A zombie-like, singular figure faces us impassively, adding a mysterious atmosphere and hinting at an elusive narrative. These ominous ghost-like figures often populate Dorland’s paintings, bringing to mind horror movie imagery, but also alluding to the sense of isolation so pervasive in our contemporary culture.