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Rocks Moving in the Current of a Stream
Material	Steel screws and bolts, rubber, linoleum, plywood, acrylic paint, galvanized steel
Size	153.3 x 245.3 cm
Created	1971
Present location	Art Gallery of Ontario
Identification	83/27

Rocks Moving in the Current of a Stream is in the collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Description

Rocks Moving in the Current of a Stream (1971) is a multi-media work by the Canadian artist Paterson Ewen. The piece depicts the isolated movement of one rock in four different stages of motion across what we assume to be the bottom of a stream. A directional arrows show which way it is progressing across the canvas and individual arrows show how the rock is moving – up and around, end over end, until it is back to its starting position. Ewen used steel screws, bolts, rubber nuts, rubber, linoleum, plywood, acrylic paint, and galvanized steel. These elemental materials reinforced the expression of nature represented in the work. This piece, along with How Lightening Worked in 1925 and Thunderchain, were some of the last pieces on canvas that Paterson worked on before moving fully into multi-media woodblock print. It is an exemplary work of Ewen’s interest in natural phenomenon and his almost scientific expression of their power and occurrence.

Historical information

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Ewen’s technique changed dramatically which can be attributed to his exposure to new art movements when he moved from Montreal to London, Ontario in 1968. Here conceptual art was gaining increasing popularity, and there was a refreshing artistic spirit that encouraged bold deviations in how artists were perceived and how they made their art. Ewen was exposed to works by Greg Curnoe, Jack Chambers, and the Rabinowitch brothers. Artists in London were no longer limiting themselves to certain disciplines or descriptions – they worked across media and could be painters and photographers, or filmmakers and sculptors, or all four. Ewen has always been an admirer of artists such as Cézanne and Bonnard for their ability to intensify the visual experience by simplifying objects to only their essential parts and then enhancing that experience through colour. Now, being in an environment that encouraged his creative experimentation, he took his abstraction to a new level producing a three series called Lifestream using only two colours and lines of varying size. In these series he sought to visually express a relationship between both line and colour and hard-edge and gesture using a very physical application of paint and a premeditated imitation of gesture in the arcs and direction of the lines.

Just starting out in London, Ewen was eager to join the discourses of his fellow artists. What he found was a distinct interest in natural phenomena and the fantastical mechanics of a personal universe or cosmos. This, combined with a new appreciation for representational imagery, most-likely brought on by the enthusiasm for the new American painter Philip Guston, encouraged Ewen to produce a new series of works. “I got interested in air currents, and well, there are scientific diagrams [where] you can’t really see a current, so they’re always described diagrammatically in science books, and those dotted lines and dashes and things fascinated me, it reminds me of Leonardo da Vinci’s drawing, you know he tends to draw in dots and dashes." Ewen took his appreciation for this diagrammatic approach that could be traced back to ancient cartographers and their depictions of the heavens, and gave it a modern vibrancy and life that situated them very heavily in local collective art practices. He also starting creating works on a much larger scale, imbuing these everyday phenomena with a heroic importance. What came of this new direction were works like Thunder Cloud as Generator #1 and #2. Ewen used directional arrows, positive and negative signs, and other markings and symbols to demonstrate not just the phenomenon itself but its occurrence. After this Ewen produced Rocks Moving in the Current of Stream, How Lightening Worked in 1925, and Thunderchain. In these equally massive works he presents nature not as a generator, a word that implies some for of measure and control, but rather as a powerful force that has always been and will always be – nature as an unpredictable but inevitable event.

Acquisition

This work was purchased by the Art Gallery of Ontario in 1983.

Artist

Main article: Paterson Ewen