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Maurice Spira: Trips - New Work 

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description

Maurice Spira
Trips - New Work
June 16 to July 29 2006

A two dimensional surrealist painting installation. Acrylic paintings on paper are 50" x 116" in dimension and is work that stems from the artist's anxieties, alarms, and terrors. These works were produced over 2004 2005 by the artist and represent a development within his work.

There is a significant surrealist community in Vancouver though they aren't always represented in Vancouver galleries. Spiro is a strong example of this community and these new works will be a strong show for our summer period. Vancouver has had few opportunities recently to see this senior artists work.

ARTIST'S STATEMENT

Though I continue to experience a deep ambivalence over the very concept of "civilization", while at the same time noting a certain macabre and comic quality to our lives, paradoxically, I still strive for "order' in my own work.

bio

Maurice Spira was born in Kent, England in 1944. After four years of quite traditional studies at a provincial art school, and a stint in advertising in London, he left in 1966 for the "new world."

In the ensuing years 1966-67, the psychoactively enriched counter-cultural milieu in Montréal transformed him utterly. Then, after traveling and painting in Mexico during the mid-seventies, he settled in Vancouver.

This period, 1977-82 was a fertile one. A number of thematic avenues were explored. Painting and block printing became established as his preferred mediums.

By the early 80's, requiring a breath of fresh air, Spira vacated the metropolis for a somewhat more rural existence on the Sunshine Coast. More than two decades later, he continues to paint and print in his Roberts Creek studio, while still finding time to grow excellent red cabbages and spuds.