PHOTO ESSAY
That '60s Show
The National Gallery embraces the flower power decade
By Liz Hodgson
 Reds and Yellows on Green by Eric Cameron. Courtesy National Gallery of Canada. |
Eric Cameron
Reds and Yellows on Green
1968
Oil on canvas, mounted on fibreboard
Though Eric Cameron’s Reds and Yellows on Green appears to be all about optical illusion and teasing the eye, “there is something more interesting at work,” says Leclerc. Work is the operative word. Cameron fashioned this piece – which measures almost two square metres – by painstakingly laying out a grid of Scotch Tape, then painting each square by hand. Of course, the human hand is not steady enough to make the lines perfectly straight. As a result, there are irregularities. “When you look at it, it looks like optical art. But Cameron is after something else here. This piece is carefully done. The focus is on the process,” says Leclerc. The use of tape is clever, too. It’s a reverse of the natural order of things. Artists have often used tape to block off edges, the way that wall painters do. Cameron, according to Leclerc, included it in the very structure of the work, so that something that used to reside outside the perimeter of the actual content now becomes the content.
More from this Author
Liz Hodgson
- Rhyme and Reason
- Camille Paglia on the world's best poetry
- That '60s Show
- The National Gallery embraces the flower power decade
- Groundbreaker
- A profile of architect Daniel Libeskind
- 2004: The Year in Advertising