Topiary: Allan Toews

Themes of gardens, parks, hedges, shrubbery, over the top topiary, greenhouses, memorials, statues, crypts and even cemeteries have been pre- occupying my mind. This is reflected in my recent paintings , where in my attempt to paint something resembling a hedge, something else ultimately emerges, something not quite definable or recognizable. The hedge morphs into a more anthropomorphic or architectural form. The inspiration is always the architectural, geometric, manicured forms of the designed landscape trimmed to perfection with its geometric forms and hard edge curves. So what I am really doing is painting living sculptural forms that dominate the picture plane or composition. Starting off to represent the naturalistic a reductive and imaginary process takes over and the hedge is reduced to simpler shapes and forms.

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