TORONTO -
The Lacemaker's Gallery on 753 Queen St. W is playing host to an exhibition of abstract paintings by Toronto's Lorne Wagman. The show, called "New Work" continues until Oct. 15.

New Work really is new in the sense of original and untried. Wagman, 24, a graduate of the New School of Art in Totonto, brings an unbridled energy to his work that is both his strength and weakness. The paintings' explosiveness shocks the viewer at first glance. Then one is literally hypnotized as if by strange intricate music.

Castle in the Mountains, 1981 5x7 ft, Oil on canvas $8,500

Wagman is also a musician, which may explain the musicality of his work. Like experimental jazz, his work has melody, rhythm, tone and is structured unconventionally, if, indeed, at all.

"I don't think about the form a painting is going to take," said Wagman, wearing a hand-knitted sweater, like Joseph's coat of many colours, to match his paintings. "My subjects grow out of the paintings," he said. "I only understand the painting after it's finished. Maybe never."

Wagman's work appeals to both the emotions and the intellect. The larger paintings suggest an interior or psychological landscape alive with motion. Wagman loves to camp and sketch outdoors, and that love shines through his art, in "Watery Landscape", for example, painted in acrylic. Here is a planet in a constant state of flux, perhaps an antediluvian world, with volcanoes and rivers bursting through the earth; a world giving birth.

"Town in the Valley" is the stuff of dreams, literally. "I dreamed of a town in a valley that didn't care if the earth moved." Here, nature and humans live in symbiosis, or at least without bothering one another. A house, its shingles flying in the wind, bends itself to accommodate a tree growing beside it. Walls wind their own way through the town, obstructing nothing. Rivers flow undisturbed through houses. The painting reflects Wagman's gentle nature.

He speaks self-effacingly about the creative process, making it sound as simple as brushing one's teeth. "It doesn't matter what kind of brush I use. Whatever's handy. But I have to rev up, get into a state of concentration, like playing music. Then things begin to happen," Wagman said.

Toronto Ravine, 1981 4x5 ft, Oil on canvas $7,000

Most of his paintings work because they are melodious, but some, such as "Geological Thriller", are so loud they are deafening. Wagman bombards us here with a chaotic world lacking in unity of color and form.

Wagman's talent is evident in smaller paintings such as "The Cave", in which labyrinths and underworld streams come to life. He somehow transforms a small space, perhaps 8 x 11 inches, into an engrossing world.

"Baby Elephant" is a study in fear at its most primitive. It is baby elephant - becoming - becoming monster, a fog-wrapped beast that poet T.S. Eliot might have had in mind when he wrote in "The Wasteland" of his "beast slouching to Jerusalem".

The sculpture "Fallen Wing" is precisely that - a startlingly lifelike wing. It might have come from Icarus, the artisan who fashioned wings of wax, only to have them melt in the heat of the sun.

Wagman said he does not "merely" paint. "You have to need to paint. If you just want to paint, you won't end up being a good or prolific painter." Wagman has made painting his full-time career. He also works part time at "rubbish jobs", such as in a car wash or as a dishwasher.

Untitled, 1981

"I like the freedom of not being committed," he says.

The refusal to conform to set standards characterizes Wagman both as a painter and in life. He sings and drums in the band Niagara, made up exclusively of artists. Wagman describes their music as "experimental".

Wagman's exhibits in Toronto have included the 567 Gallery, the Isaacs Gallery, Harbourfront and the Artists' Co-operative.

BACK