"Geoff Farnsworth's recent paintings explore portraiture as a vehicle for stylistic innovation. Each works to animate a multi-level experiential direct approach to the action of painting. The results are visually challenging. Using surface and painterly effects, and bright Pop colours and brushwork that recall the works of Larry Rivers and Robert Rauschenberg these paintings work on two levels. The first is that of representation and the subjects they portray whether classical or contemporary. The second level is the interplay between the abstract and painterly and figural outlining. The portrait figures become abstract devices for expressing the energy of the act of painting. They likewise build a landscape of psychological and meditative states, using brushwork, layers, visual effects, while respectfully maintaining the subject and portrait theme. Farnsworth achieves a level of intensity that makes these works sublime, almost mystical meditations on the artist's approach to art and life.
While beginning his art training in Vancouver at Capilano College, Emily Carr, and the Federation of Canadian Artists, Farnsworth then went on to the Art Students League in Manhattan, New York from 1997 to 2002. Recent shows have been held in New York, Washington DC, Minneapolis, Vancouver, Toronto, and Stockholm, Sweden. An artist to watch, and who continues to grow as a painter."
-John K. Grande
excerpt from review in Vie des Arts,
No. 202 Spring 2006
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