Diaz Contemporary is pleased to present an exhibition by Victoria-based artist, Robert Youds. handmade ultramarine mantra is a body of new paintings that continue to explore Youds’ interest in light, colour and existential concerns of the urban condition.
Youds’ paintings suggest empirical paradoxes of how time passes and repeats. His mark-making, humanistic and instantaneous, becomes meditative through repetition and gradual transformation. Tenuous relationships between the natural and urban environment are reflected in Youds’ use of 2x4 lumber as a stamping tool. Further, these new works also contrast monochromatic imprints (which recall ancient cave paintings) and their almost-neon coloured glowing auras.
Robert Youds holds an MFA from York University and a BFA from the University of Victoria. He is currently the University of Victoria’s Faculty of Fine Arts Lansdowne Chair. Previous solo exhibitions include: Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Victoria, BC, Sable-Castelli Gallery in Toronto, ON, Post Gallery in Los Angeles, CA, Southern Alberta Art Gallery in Lethbridge, AB and Charles H. Scott Gallery in Vancouver, BC. Youds’ work can be found in private and public collections, including the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, ON, Vancouver Art Gallery, BC, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, BC, Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Halifax, NS, Museum London, ON, Art Gallery of Hamilton, ON, Canada Council Art Bank, Ottawa, ON, Macdonald Stewart Art Centre, Guelph, ON, and the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, ON, as well as the collections of Toronto Dominion Bank and Bank of Montreal.
  
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