The Christopher Cutts Gallery is proud to present “Into The Void,” featuring the work of contemporary abstract painter Peter Templeman. Spanning three decades of the Toronto artist’s practice, this exhibition reveals a process of metamorphosis, where the artist confronts the void —not as a space of emptiness, but as a threshold through which light, meaning, and self are continuously refracted.
At the core of Templeman’s practice lies a complex interplay of ideas, actions, and materials. Figures dissolve into abstraction, and strokes of colour are layered and re-layered in a relentless dialogue between paint and canvas. For Templeman, the canvas becomes a site of surrender, where he allows ideas to overlap, merge, and collide automatically. The result is a collection of layered, tactile surfaces, built through large, sweeping gestures and intimate, deliberate moments of restraint.
The coarse physicality of these paintings is balanced with a nuanced emotional depth, shaped by the artist’s physical environment and personal experiences. After moving to Toronto in the 1970s to pursue his art career, Templeman took influence from the city’s bustling atmosphere and dynamic art scene, connecting with artists such as Toronto’s Painters Eleven, Graham Coughtry, and Rae Johnson, among others. The impact of the city’s vibrant urban life is palpable in the shifting qualities of light and colour that pulse through these paintings.
Each layer of paint both obscures and reveals, capturing the space between the artist’s external environment and his internal landscape as he grapples with his past and personal challenges through the act of painting. Templeman’s process is one of pushing through self-perpetuated rules, fears, and uncertainties. It is an act of both risk and release. As the artist describes it, “you jump in, and you go, or you sink. —But sometimes sinking into the void takes you further.”
Presenting works from the 1990s to the 2020s, this exhibition features Peter Templeman’s early large-scale canvases alongside smaller recent pieces. “Into The Void” unfolds as a palimpsest, where the artist’s bold, physical gestures are tempered by a subtle emotional undercurrent that reveals traces of his past.
Please join us for the opening reception on Saturday, June 21, from 2 – 6 pm. The artist will be in attendance.
This exhibition will be on display from June 21 – July 12, 2025.
