BEN WALMSLEY’S “THE ONES HERE NOW” RUNS TO JUNe 28. THU-FRI 11AM-5PM;
SAT noon-5PM. GALLERY AT 129 OSSINGTON, 129 OSSINGTON. 416-532-1310.
Ben Walmsley’s new paintings are great on their own, but might make more sense when considered next to a series he did over 10 years ago, “STILL.” For that earlier series, Walmsley painted, with naturalist precision, liquor bottles — Jack Daniel’s, Pimm’s, Jim Beam and the like — against fields of white and colour. The work seemed to point out the simple connections between minimalism and maximalism: the purity of the abstract backgrounds acting as a foil for that of the objects in the foreground, with their detail and luminosity.
In the new series, “The Ones Here Now,” Walmsley trades booze for children, two seemingly contradictory subjects with very similar effects. Indeed, the way Walmsley represents children suggests the discrepancy between their cultural roles and their formal qualities. Like liquor bottles, children are associated with fun, abandon, mischievousness. As objects of contemplation, they are the opposite: still, rounded, unruffled. Walmsley’s title refers to the fleeting formal state of children, who look so different with each passing month and thus are victims of so many parental snapshots. As paintings, however, they are adamant.