There seems to be some sort of anthropomorphic trend in painting. Brian Burnett's recent works featured eyes looming out of West Coast landscapes. Lorne Wagman's recent paintings are full of beasts and human heads which have been worked into forest scenes in such a way that they suggest a commonality of creatures, as well as a linking of mineral, vegetable and animal life.

Concertino for Guitar, 1987 Not for sale

Wagman's beasts, unlike most of the beasts that have appeared in this decade's painting, are neither menacing nor portentious. They are lost mongrels whose genealogy owes something to bears, dogs and even kangaroos. They are, in other words, close to the kind of mass-culture anthropomorphic transformation of animals usually found in cartoons, or even in stuffed animals.

The tendency to give human attributes to animals has an old and venerable tradition, but due to this kind of commercial exploitation, it is now often perceived as merely sentimental, as yet another symptom of man's need to transform, colonize or appropriate all others for his own use. Yet, anthropomorphizing, which might at one time have been a profound psychological tool for controlling a genuine fear of animals, may still have some uses.

Meeting Place#12, 1986 Collection: Michael Copeman

In any case, there is nothing sentimental about Wagman's paintings. He captures our contemporary sense of animals as image mutants - most people have never seen a bear in the wild - in a landscape which is in itself a painterly Group of Seven mutant. Such is Wagman's skill as a painter, however, that these modern bestiaries have a unique appeal. Wagman has a refreshingly unmuddy sense of color, and the offbeat, doodle-like compositions have a kind of irreplaceable integrity.

In Daydreamer, for instance, rocks become dogs and bears in a deliciously effortless way, or a mountain range becomes the undulating back of a beast which, in turn, shelters a litter of human heads. In Meeting Place #12, bear-like creatures bathe in rocky pools that cascade down into a perfect little pastoral painting while men's heads, with tops cut off, serve as the containers for stagnant pools of water.