John Kissick: Fever Visions and Abstract Rapture

Painter, educator, writer—John Kissick is a man of many talents, and in the past decade he has built a reputation with rambunctious abstract paintings that use an encyclopedic array of painted motifs and textures drawn from a global pool of visual representation. In an artist statement for this new show, Kissick owns up to the adventurous erudition that supports his work. He writes that “Max Ernst coined the term ‘fever vision’ in the early 1920s to describe a kind of visual delirium and psychological slippage that can occur in front of certain kinds of visual assemblages. I am finding myself increasingly attracted to this notion.” Why? “Because of … a certain heightened loss of control on the part of the viewer in attempting to apprehend meaning.” And because “it also implies illness, rapture—apt metaphors for the historical predicament of abstract painting.” Kissick’s paintings make that predicament a happy one. (406-80 Spadina Ave, Toronto ON)

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