Fik van Gestel / Tom Thomson

Tom Thomson

Northern River

1914–15

oil on canvas

115,1 x 102 cm


National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Pocket sized exuberance (tribute to Tom Thomson)

It was only last year that I, through Tom Liekens, was introduced to the work of Tom Thomson. His paintings surprised and overwhelmed me. It felt like I discovered a painting ancestor.

With an accurate clear view, the artist analyses the pristine Canadian natural environment and registers it with a juicy, smooth post-impressionist touch. While wandering through woods and canoeing on lakes he absorbs that environment with a greedy exuberance. He manages to capture and translate the changing atmospheric particulars and seasonal features with their own striking and bold color pictorially. Thomson paints on small wooden or cardboard panels that are easily stowed away in his luggage. Sometimes these sketches were then worked out on a larger scale in the studio.

Tom Thomson painted for just a few years, a century ago. He was an iconic figure, partly because of his early, mysterious death shortly before the age of 40. It could be presumed that the canoes in some of Peter Doig’s work refer to the enigmatic Tom Thomson.

Fik van Gestel, 2016

Fik van Gestel (BE)

De anatomie van energie

2014

acrylic on canvas

250 x 250 cm

www.fikvangestel.be