While working on ‘Protection’,Tina has been signing lots ofpetitions, enjoying the neighbours,sending a little boy onto to aschool bus for the first timeand writing her thoughts downon scraps of paper.

Blanketed Crowd

It was complicatedsorting outThe threads that tied us togetherthe towersand wiresand wirelesswebs woven around our heads,stitched us togethertighter and tighteruntil we allsaw the same thing,ate the same foodand lost our singularcolour

newlove 2008

Blanketed Crowd 30" x 40" oil on canvas

Womb, assemblage

Tina Newlove graduated from McMaster

University in the Honours Fine Arts

program in 1996. She has an extensive

list of solo exhibitions, group and juried

shows in which she has participated and

has received many awards.To be

counter-productiveTina likes to drink tea

in the garden, fume over politics, dance

and think thoughts – occasionally jotting

them down. For company,Tina loves her

musical friends who provide her with

endless delight and dancing opportunities

and her neighbours for their witty banter.

At home,Tina has a large collection of

children’s books she likes to read to the

smallest person in the house

(often herself) and a studio, in walking

distance, where she often escapes to.

As a constant Tina continues to explore

means of portraying her secrets, protests

and declarations as in ‘Protection’.

WinterBurden

Winter woman

Backpack full

Family; memory

Misty breath

Streetlight glow

Snowflakes settling

Winter flowers

Work, home

Work, home

Back againnewlove 2008

I’m Going toGet Me aWife8" x 4" oil on paper

I Looked Inside(Conscious)

22" x 17"oil on printed paper

Open LikeThis18" x 12" oil on canvas

Hope Burst4" x 4" oil on canvas

Her Halo was Half the Size,4.5" x 3", silver leaf on photo

II LLooookkeedd IInnssiiddee::TThhee SSppaacceess BBeettwweeeenn

((ccoonnsscciioouuss))

Apple Blushingthere were fruit flies

clustered on this juicy talkapple parts with fleshy bits

pinks and lemon yellowlast sip of wine

skin, skinnedblushing all the while

Halved apple, apple halvedthree parts in one

skinseedflesh

newlove 2008

OOppeenn BBooookk

they were bound together,loves little moments

on pages pressed togethera chapter book recording

the way they sailed throughthe day

the sun and the moonflowers from the market

life cycles,death cycleswash cycles

past-present-future

nneewwlloovvee 22000088

OOPPEENN

i became transparentas i walkedb e t w e e n

(the passage of timethe flow of the crowd)

my bones creaked into motion

(and then)

i was sailing in full viewwith my eyes squinting in the sunwith my heart wide openwith an open bookwith my body

(walking on)

LIKE THIS

newlove 2008

My Thoughts Were Crowded 21" x 15.5" oil on canvas

They Looked Past Her and Through Her 6" x 4" oil on canvas

’Protest’ or ’She felt herself’

she felt herself protestanguished insideat the inability to speakat the appropriate times

she felt herself lovelyand sad and blueshe felt herself lonelyone againinstead of two

she felt herself vulnerablehand on cool wallno strength to �ghtno strength at all

she felt herself angryat all the mistakeseveryone around her and herselfwould make

and she was tired of apathyand sick of her heartwhich beat out a rhythmin pale yellow light

and the glare of revolutionwas burning my faceand at every siren soundingwomen and children embraced

newlove 2008

Protest Girl

It was aboutthe lack of feelingthe lack of abilityTo do something

petitionsprotest lettersSigning and signing and signing

I opened my heart

and out came a flag to wave in the windto create a breezein the breathless air…

something to dowhile everyone,everywhere,held their breath

newlove 2008

She Checked Her Pieces23" x 16" drawing on cut paper

Walking Into April 30" x 10" oil on board

She Held Her Bunny Tight12" x 6" watercolour

Protest Girl60" x 40" oil on canvas

Target (triptych)7" x 11" oil on paperPolitical Circus: This Clown was

Walking Around, 4.5" x 3", watercolour

he was walking into Aprilin a lucid dazewith his hands tied backfully attachedto the misdeeds of the pastthe crueltycoming down the lineto him today

and the streetlights were staringas he walked by

in the pitching nightand they murmuredand they mutteredas he looked downthe last words he heard

“thanks for wasting my time”

newlove 2008

To be face to face with one of Tina Newlove’spaintings is to be confronted with beauty, spiri-tuality, sorrow and struggle. All of these elements are portrayed through complexcolours and forms that are expressed throughthe artist’s sensitive but sure touch. Newlove’simages present intricate patterns of rich, oftenunusual colours that in many cases are adornedwith gold leaf, embroidery or words, giving arichness and preciousness to the works. Themovement on the surface is musical, bringing tolife what often seem like abstract ideas. Butwithin all of Newlove’s work there is more be-neath the surface. Hidden within the abstractpatterns are figures; in drawers, artwork; andbehind the paint, text. Although the artist is ex-pressing herself through the movement and vi-brancy of the media, there is also a subjectthere, one that she reveals even while she pro-tects it. The subject is usually uncomfortable,one that addresses pain, abuse, despair. But theway Newlove treats the figures in these situa-tions is to respect their vulnerability by cushion-ing them in elaborate colours and forms, and toimbue them with beauty, making them appeal-ing to the viewer and in fact enticing the viewerto love them and protect them as she does.

Tina Newlove is a fun-loving, vibrant, excitingand perceptive young woman. Her joyful en-ergy when you are around her is contagious asis her search for beauty and her constant questioning of the world. The intensity of allshe feels and thinks is certainly echoed in herartwork. To look seriously at Newlove’s workis to look for a long period time. Even the smallest paintings have minute details and subtle suggestions that leave the viewer looking harder and asking more questions.

Newlove’s painting is a definite amalgamationof many historical styles and yet she bringsthem together in a way that is unique. In herpaintings we see the chaos and anti-logic of theDadaists, and the spontaneity and the creationfrom the subconscious of the abstract expres-sionists. There are clear references to individ-

ual painters like Klimt and Kandinsky. Thehighly decorative style of Newlove’s paintings isimmediately reminiscent of Klimt’s figures asare her use of gold leaf, her focus on the fe-male figure and the Egyptian-like patterns thatappear in her work. And yet, her message isentirely different. Her colours, the importanceof music and the expression of the spiritual areall similar to the approach of Kandinsky as iswhat he saw as the fairy-tale power of painting.And yet of course the time she’s living in, herown experiences in the world and her veryperson are so prominent in Newlove’s paint-ings that they reveal an individualism that takesthese aspects of historical styles and fusesthem with her own to create this aesthetic.

For Tina Newlove, the canvas is not merely something that one paints on. Every littlepiece of material she touches whether it becanvas, linen, paper or wood, becomes thework or maybe even is the work. In her seriesof dictionary pages, Newlove reproduces apage of a dictionary directly onto the canvas orpaper and then begins to weave her image inand out and around the words and the mean-ings. The definitions inspire the images and theimages add meanings to the words. In manycases the images are literal interpretations ofthe words like in Milked that is painted on the“cow” page of the dictionary and on whichNewlove has painted the cow and bottles ofmilk. Even in this painting there is undoubtedlya more subtle message that the artist is con-veying through the phrases she highlights, like“the mature female”, “the domestic bovine”and the “silly cow” which together with otherworks in the exhibition reference issuesaround fertility, nursing, nurturing and the roleof the feminine. Other dictionary pages aremore poetic in their interpretations like thepainting My Thoughts were crowded, circularand repeating on the page including the word“crowd”. To interpret this word, Newlovechose a self-portrait in which she reveals an in-timacy about her own inner thoughts. AndWar Cloud shows the most abstract interpre-tation and one in which the artist has let looseon the surface of the page to the extent thatthere is very little of the original left visible,with a myriad of circles and stars explodingabout, creating a highly textured, visually busyimage that is at once appealing and devastating.In her figurative paintings viewers may at first

not even recognize them as such. Winter Bur-den, They Looked Past her and Through herand Blanketed Crowd for instance initially looklike plays of pattern, texture and colour. Thereare lines and shapes, areas of light and darkthat have the eye swirling around the surfacefinding moments of panic and chaos balancedby spaces of calm and release. But slowly theeye adapts to the vibrations and energy andbegins to identify a figure or figures. In WinterBurden, it is a faceless woman in a long coat,bent over due to the weight of her knapsackand what seems to be a windy winter storm.They Looked Past Her and Through Hershows a young girl, off to the side, turning herhead severely away from the viewer trying tohide in the background of the painting, whichindeed her body does. She seems afraid, does-n’t want to be seen and yet she is there in atouching and vulnerable pose that makes theviewer simultaneously uncomfortable and sym-pathetic. Blanketed Crowd is the most ab-stract of the three but the many forms couldbe interpreted as figures all huddled togetherin a faceless crowd; a crowd where althougheveryone is together they are all alone.

In other works Newlove incorporates the actual surface as part of the work. I LookedInside and Hope burst, for instance, show abstract patterns framed by the border of thepage which the artist has cut out to create anintricate lace-like frame. The reference todoilies and other feminine lace traditions isclear and builds a bridge between her painting,which references such a male-dominated history, and this more traditionally female craft.A frame, a solid form used on paintings to protect them, here is as delicate as lace. Againthere is a subtle suggestion that this protectionis needed even to safeguard such strong images as those presented in these paintings.

In She checked her pieces and Target thecutouts become even more integrated into thework, actually becoming part of the subjectrather than the frame. She checked her pieces,for example, once again shows this abstractdoily shape as the head of the figure allowingthe work to jump back and forth between figurative and abstract, realistic and imaginative,drawing and cut-out. This technique capturesliterally the idea expressed in the title of thework (She checked her pieces and wondered if

she was falling apart) as well as the emotionalconfusion and lack of control implied in it.As an artist, Newlove uses much more thanthe visual image to express herself. She is awriter, a poet, a performer. Her visual art is in-extricably linked to music, words and sounds aswell as things she sees in her everyday life.Newlove creates in a world where the soundson the street influence and are influenced bythe images in her head and the objects in herstudio. She passes an old confessional in astore on the street and immediately her bodyof art takes on new focus. The notions of confession and religion in general echo somefeelings of privacy versus public, and even thesacred versus the profane that Newlove is exploring in this body of work. On one side ofthe confessional Newlove paints a self-portraitmaking her vulnerable, an act of bravery andsharing. Similarly, she is camping in an Ontariopark and the howl of a wolf reminds her of thepower of nature, the cycle of the natural worldand these ideas work themselves into herwork. She finds an antique photo album oneBay and in it her ideas of memory, family, reality and imagination are clarified in concretefrom. Her work then adopts the figures in thealbum. They become her characters and shebecomes their listener.

Newlove explains the two photo albums in theexhibition: The antique photo albums, filledwith paintings and poetry and musings, are likediaries where I can record feelings and memo-ries – a daily meditation. The works wrestlewith the need to express and explore my subconscious as well as the desire to hidethose same things - to confess and clear the airor to lock them away. (Artist statement, 2008)

Memory Book is filled with 36 miniature paintings, some of trees, some abstract, somefigurative. The titles of these paintings all flowtogether to create a poem, one that echoesthe stream of consciousness in Newlove’smind. The other album Portage…I lookedbackwards as I walked includes both originalpaintings as well as some of the old photographs that came with the album. Including these photographs is a tool Newloveuses to help protect the memory of thesepeople. Although their identity is lost and eventheir image given away, she reclaims their presence giving importance and meaning –

Tina Newlove: Protection

even if it is recreated meaning – to their lives.In both works the titles are part of the storygiving viewers just a hint into the possibilitiesaround the image, like “they watched him gofrom the steps” and “Her halo was half thesize”. But the full story is one viewers have towrite on their own, by once again spendingtime looking at the images and going beyondthe surface to imagine the specifics of each ofthe characters.

Something is troubling about Newlove’s im-ages. The overall theme of the exhibition –protection – itself makes us ask questions.Protection from what? What or whom do weneed to protect? And why? Newlove’s tech-nique is very effective. She draws us in withbeautiful images that are so full of life that weinevitably spend time looking all over, enjoyingthe rhythms, the dancing colours, the spiralinglines. And in looking we see more and more.A little girl bashfully – maybe even fearfully -turned away from the viewer, faceless figurescrowded together and yet not appearing tosee each other, the idea that someone is pres-ent and yet not seen all convey the need for ordesire for protection. There is nothing overt inthese images, but there seems to be underlin-ing themes that suggest abuse, depression, iso-lation and sadness. There is certainly fear,chaos, references to war and danger. Newlove elaborates: Ideas litter my mind likescraps of paper or buzzing flies. While I cherishthe beautiful, the delicate, the detailed, the or-ganic and the non-violent, I often paint my ex-perience with violence, despair, the poor andwar-torn.” (Artist statement, 2006)

The real question emerges: are these figuresand objects hiding or are they revealing themselves? It is exactly this issue that theartist herself struggles with. Her endless fearof revealing too much, of maintaining her pri-vacy and thus her safety is continually in con-flict with her almost uncontrollable desire toshare, speak, be seen.

Such an array of images, such range in material,and such a culmination of ideas might result ina muddled message that is all over the placewith no clarity or focus. And yet, what is unde-niable about Newlove’s work is the fact that allthese paths cross at one point and that is inher head. They enter her thoughts, get filtered

through her sensitivity and creativity and leavethrough her works of art where they reveal afamiliar yet dichotomous feeling: the need toprotect versus the need to let go. She sheltersher objects with beauty, she defends themthrough abstraction. She once described herimages of female figures this way, “I have a lotof these sad young girls in my paintings rightnow….they do have some sad themes. That’swhy I try to paint them so beautifully – sopeople can’t help but love them.”

Newlove’s approach to her message is steeredby her endless searching, the intensity of heremotional response to what she sees in theworld and her uncontrollable need to expressher reactions and her struggles to find a pathwhere she can find answers. Her desire for pri-vacy is constantly shaken by her responsibility tospeak out. In the end it is her struggle to grow,her need to be courageous and take risks thatleads her to share her artwork with the public.The beauty she strives to share combined withthe ugliness she has seen in the world results inart that is perhaps best described in its mostbasic way as terribly beautiful.

Maura BroadhurstCuratorThe Latcham Gallery

ISBN#978-0-9811100-0-4

© 2008 Tina Newlovetina@tinanewlove.comwww.tinanewlove.com

The Latcham GalleryBox 3, 6240 Main Street,Stouffville, ONCanada L4A 7Z4905.640.8954Fax 905.640.6246info@latchamgallery.cawww.latchamgallery.ca

Director Roz PritchardExhibition Curator and Writer Maura BroadhurstEducation Program Coordinator Cass ReimerDesign Musky Graphics Inc.Photography www.johnwoodphotography.bizSound Installation Andrew HendriksPrinting Kingsweb Printers Inc. www.kingsweb.caDates October 26 to November 30, 2008

Tina Newlove gratefully acknowledges the assistance of an Exhibition Grant and The Latcham Gallery for the assistance of an Education Grant from the Ontario Arts Council for the ‘Protection’ Exhibition.

Eric Knoestel , Artcast Inc.Sylvia & Malcolm Leal Main Street Inn, Georgetown Carol Mahoney, Weedaway Doug Newlove Rose Anna Newlove Shirley and Don Pounsett Jim Reid, Four Sticks Framing Gisela and John Sommer Roberta and John Wood, John Wood Photography

Paul C. Armstrong Insurance IncBruce Cockburn Dale and Dave Cox Donald FraserLois & Al FraserKathy & George Gastle Margaret and Frederick Helson Gord Hoey, Musky Graphics Inc. Nancy and George Kee

Tina gratefully acknowledges the contribution and support of the following donors:

Bullet # 2 lost wax cast bronze nail 6”

war cloud, 20" x 16" oil on printed paper