Art 100 Final Essay

 

DAVID THAUBERGER: WHAT LIES BOYOND THE FACADES

Benjamin R. Ironstand

Art 100: Introduction to Art

Mr. Anderson

April 1, 2014

        Throughout our world, we are confronted with a number of facades. From literal building facades, to the hypothetical front that we build to cover ideas or thoughts. When we walk down the street we see the fronts of buildings, and from these sights, we build first impressions and ponder what lies beyond them. In the prairies of Saskatchewan there are many iconic images that hold a deeper meaning. An image of a barn, a workhorse, or a church on the prairie are some examples of images that point to the culture of rural living and prairie life. Likewise, when looking at art, the surface of the image and its subject matter, there is always deeper meaning beyond it. All art holds content beneath its surface and subject matter the way it is formed. Culturally and socially speaking there are also superficial fronts, or images, we build around ourselves and those around us. When we see a clean cut house, with a freshly mowed lawn, we make assumptions of the people who own that house and who care for that lawn. From these image we make assumptions about the people behind it, we build ideas of what they may be like form the clothes they wear, they car they drive, and the house they live in.

        The artist David Thauberger comments on all the lack of depth that these fronts and facades have in his art work. His work compliments on the iconography of Saskatchewan prairie life; notions of high and low art; and the ideas our culture assumes from viewing skin-deep surfaces.

        When thinking about Saskatchewan prairie life and culture, many iconic images can be associated with it. Some examples of images that come to mind are tractors, barns, a vast and flat horizon, miles and miles of fields, etc. These images are a common sight when driving across  the Saskatchewan prairie, but all of them can imply deeper meaning beyond their surface. These are all iconic images. An image of a work house represents much more than just a beautiful animal. The workhorse represents physical labour, farming, agriculture, and farm families. Thauberger’s work Grandfather’s Painting’s subject is an example of such an iconic image. The large and beautiful work horse looms over the image. It’s presence is powerful, and unignorable, the way it seems to stand over the house in the middle ground can be read as a metaphor; the work horse encapsulates the essence of which prairie life was built upon -hard work and physical labour.

David Thauberger, Grandfathers Painting, 1978, acrylic glitter on canvas.

(Grandfather’s Painting)

Thauberger’s blunk folk art style is an excellent way to bring these iconic images to the forefront of our attention. In an exscript from an exhibition catalogue comes a thoughtful explanation of the folk artist,

“In a strange way, folk art shares many characteristics with icon. Its subjects are often the past, the bygone days of the pioneers; the painted and sculpture forms are not ‘realistic,’ but described as ‘primitive’ and ‘naive’; and the folk artist stands apart, untainted by the professional art world, creating instead from the heart.”^[1]

Thauberger’s work Light Shower is another example of blunt representation of another iconic prairie image – a scene of a barn in the rain. There are a number of thoughts and ideas that lie beneath the surface of this image. There is the thought of days spent indoors because the rain makes it not easy to work, there is the idea playing outside in the rain on the farm, and a number of other ideas that this image implies that can be related to life on the prairies.

“Buildings become signs or emblems of much prairie social and community life, especially in the rural areas where the town halls, curling rinks and dancehalls provide social connection in an often inhospitable environment.”^[2]

David Thauberger, Light Shower, 1981, acrylic glitter on canvas.

(Light Shower)

        Harvest Painting is another example of Thauberger’s iconic prairie imagery. The field ready for harvest that lies underneath a vast horizon is another iconic scene that is common in the Saskatchewan prairies. When looking at this picture, ideas of hard work, long days, and even the thought of enjoying a successful harvest under a refreshing sky, all come to mind. Such a scene would be very familiar to Thauberger, as he grew up in the prairie town of Holdfast. Him making these iages could definitely be considered a way for him to return to his childhood, a way to experience nostalgia.

David Thauberger, Harvest Painting, 1979, acrylic glitter on canvas.

(Harvest Painting)

        Indeed it would be easy to assume that Thauberger’s iconic prairie imagery is a way for him to return to his roots, and revisit his childhood. This would, however, be a large understatement. The form of these iconic fronts speaks to a deeper meaning beyond its surface. If Thauberger’s goal was to merely exercise nostalgia, the form of his images could be created in a much more realistic way. His clean and precise lines make it obvious that he is a skilled painter and that he has the ability to create realistic images. Therefore, if he was just a shallow, low class artist, that painted icons that reminded him of his childhood, he would of done it more realistically. This, however,  is not the case. Instead, his work is filled with bright and hyperrealistic colors and resembles Pop art.

        Thauberger speaks of where he got his inspirations for such familiar and personal imagery from his professor David Gihooly –

“As luck would have it, David Gihooly came onto the the faculty that fall, and I was fortunate enough to hear his frog art lecture. This was the impetus I needed.”^[3]

This image, Easter Painting, is an example of a beautiful image that would be familiar to Thauberger. However, Thauberger’s work is not just a shallow nostalgic image that lacks in deep artistic content. The form of his work speaks to the notion of high art vs low art itself.  

David Thauberger, Easter Painting, 1989, acrylic glitter on canvas.

(Easter Painting)

This is because although it is a “low class” subject matter that an uneducated artist could paint, its hyperrealistic form -the bright colours, lack of depth that would come from shading, and precise lines-  speaks of “high class” pop art, “the most consistent thing about David Thauberger’s work is the way it endlessly endeavours to center itself between the traditionally accepted poles of high and low art.”^[4] 

While Thauberger does paint images that are simply iconic and representative of the culture that surrounds him in the Saskatchewan, the form of his work speaks to deeper meaning. Thauberger speaks of where he gained some of his interest in pop art-

“At this time I began to paint as a direct result of seeing… several Thiebaud paintings… at this time I really began to pay attention to Pop art.”^[5]

        The pop art style that he employs can be seen throughout his work, Alberta Skyline can be used as an example. “His themes and subjects remain closely allied with the landscape and its place in the collective conscious through the iconic images of popular culture.”^[6] This image of a grain elevator is a common sight when driving through the prairies. With this scene come many notions and images of what being in the prairies includes (farming, trains, grain elevators, lines of power poles, ect.), but the pop art form (the bright colours and clean cut lines and appearance) speaks to the very idea of these popular notions of the prairies. It criticises these popular ideas, it questions our notions of pop culture. Although the subject matter could be considered “low class/art”, the form that he uses to depict them raises them to the realm of “high class/fine art.” When referring to another work called Flexie’s Dream, (image not included in this essay) Liz Wylie comments on Thauberger’s approach to his subject matter,

“Thauberger… chooses the image, in his typical light-hearted, humorous manner, for its pop-culture, myth-of-the-north associations.”^[7]        

        

David Thauberger, Alberta Skyline, 2000, acrylic and pastel on canvas.

(Alberta Skyline)

        When we come to realize that the form of Thauberger’s work criticizes our notions of art and pop culture, looking at his clean cut frontal facades of buildings become all the more rich in content. We can no longer view Municipal Office as an iconic image where social connection is made among prairie people. We now see it as an image that comments on our notions of art, culture, and how the assumptions we make about things a often only skin-deep. On his website, Thauberger points to this,

“Thauberger concentrates on the emblematic nature of these facades, exceptional for their cripness and cleaness silhouette against the clarity of the prairie sky. He is more interested in the freedom of painterly expression obtained by the adoption of a standardized unit or frame of reference such as the false fronts of prairie buildings.”^[8] 

David Thauberger, Municipal Office, 1990, acrylic on canvas.

(Municipal Office)

        When we see the facade of a clean cut house, we often jump to cunclusions about what lies behind it. We may think of a “clean cut family”, we may assume a “successful” person lives behind those doors, but Thaubergers work challenges our ideas oh what a home really is. In his work Pretty (Blue), everrything seems to be well in this image. We see a pretty home with a pretty lawn and we could assume that a pretty family lives there, however not all seems well. It seems that something is missing from this image. “What is missing, it would appear, is what Thauberger is addressing in these paintings, the sense of social coherence that both underlies the notion of home and spurs dissatisfaction with the modern world.”^[9] This image lacks depth. It is merely a frontal facade of a building.

David Thauberger, Pretty (Blue), 1993, acrylic, window screen on canvas.

(Pretty [Blue])

        By making producing these iconic, close-to-the-heart, and images with deep meaning, “He invites visitors to the exhibition to consider his work as both an artistic and a political/cultural statement.”^[10] After studying his work in depth, one cannot help but view the Corner Barber shop with new eyes. The image is no longer familiar, not longer a statement about high art vs low art, and not even a statement about our notions of popular culture. The image now invites us consider all of these ideas and notions in our own lives.

David Thauberger, Corner Barber, 1998, acrylic on masonite.

(Corner Barber)

        What do we really see when we look at the facades that surround us in our lives? Everyday we see different fronts. We see the fronts of buildngs, we see the fronts of preconceived notions of what is “high class” and what is “low class”, we see the fronts that we and others build up around their lives and their living. David Thauberger wrote about how he makes his art, he said -“It really comes down to expressing life experiences as an artists encounters and perceives them.” (85)^[11] After viewing Thauberger’s work, we are invited to consider how we ourselves experience our world and the way in which we perceive them.

        

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Long, Timothy. PRAIRIE ICONS: The Discovery of Saskatchewan Folk Art. Regina:

Norman Mackenzie Art Gallery, 1994.

Thauberger, David. “David Thauberger ~ Canadian Artist.” David Thauberger ~ Canadian Artist.

Accessed April 1, 2014. http://www.davidthauberger.com/.

Thauberger, David, Michael D. Hall, and Heather Smith. David Thauberger: The Moose Jaw

Pictures. Moose Jaw, Sask., Canada: Moose Jaw Museum & Art Gallery, 2002.

Wylie, Liz. “Land of the Silver Birch, Home of the Beaver.” In In the Wilds: Canoeing and

Canadian Art, 44. Kleinburg, Ont.: McMichael Canadian Art Collection, 1998.

Zepp, Norman, Michael Parke-Taylor, and David Thauberger. The Second Generation: Fourteen

Saskatchewan Painters. Regina, Sask.: Gallery, 1985.

PHOTO CREDITS

“CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY CANADIAN ART.” CENTRE FOR

CONTEMPORARY CANADIAN ART. Accessed April 1, 2014.

http://ccca.concordia.ca/.

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