The late Clifford Maracle’s acrylic paintings might be homely or primitive if it weren’t for his very deliberate, and oftentimes surprising, treatment of colour and form. Joseph McLeod of Maslak McLeod Gallery — which is showing a fine selection of Maracles during June — lumps the artist in with Norval Morrisseau’s Woodland School, but stresses that he is Mohawk (Morrisseau being, of course, Ojibwa) and studied with Fritz Scholder, the famous Native American painter based in Santa Fe. As with Scholder and Morrisseau, Maracle develops a dialogue with the white tradition: the amorphousness of his forms suggests Francis Bacon, and the boldness of his palette suggests abstractionists like Mark Rothko and Clyfford Still.

Maracle’s perspective is animist, symbolist and expressionist; it indicates how pop and myth meet. Contemporary figures are rendered iconic through unusual colours and stylized poses. Faces are sometimes indistinct, with different parts of the body, or objects surrounding it, doing the communicative job that a face might. One work, “Alone,” dwells on the rough lines of its subject’s hair, which flow into her top and contrast with the bright green of her pants, a green that snakes up her back and head to form a defensive border. A complementary pink, the work’s triumph, takes up more than half of the background. Indeed, with the flatness of Maracle’s style, it looks as if the figure is about to drown in the colour — which in this context is, somehow, much sadder than blue.

Clifford Maracle runs June 1-30. Maslak McLeod Gallery, 118 Scollard. 416-944-2577. www.maslakmcleod.com.