Drawing

This work is a series of realistic pencil renderings of vegetable forms and a series of collages based on the theme of the window. These pieces, all by young Montreal artist Jill Smith, recall the famous painting by Magritte in which a painted landscape on an easel eclipses the real thing which is just outside.

Jill Smith telescopes and juxtaposes realities inviting us to look through window frames at old photographs from family albums, to peer into tiny cupboards where we find such things as birds nests and through doors standing ajar and down lonely hallways.

In a striking piece called Marty Walks Away, we assume we are inside a room but could it be that instead we are on the outside peering into a personal dream landscape& The structure in the distance brings to mind those amusing personifications by Thurber in which houses represent human character with halls and back rooms waiting to be investigated. In Wedding Portrait, we are confronted by an enigmatic, fetish-like pastiche of a woven fabric and a picture of an anonymous bride under a loosely centered wooden frame that is festooned with crinkly old ribbons smelling of years of hibernation in the attic.