Picturing Places and Spaces

Gordon Newton applied layers of color in broad brushstrokes to create a maze-like grid. Squares, rectangles and triangles are repeated, and their forms are reinforced with thick outlines. Close examination reveals he used the collage technique with small pieces of paper affixed to the surfaces. On the back of the other work in the exhibition, Newton wrote, Winter Drydock, and thus the geometric shapes in both works can be interpreted as a drydock and two boats viewed from a bird's eye perspective possibly during different seasons or times of the day.

Gordon Newton was born to Canadian parents in Detroit, and he began studying art at Port Huron Community College. In 1969 he returned to Detroit to enroll in classes at the Society of Arts and Crafts (now College of Creative Studies) and Wayne State University. Newton became a major figure in the Cass Corridor arts movement which included many artists associated with CCS and WSU. These artists set up studios in buildings where businesses had closed on Cass Avenue and the immediate vicinity. They exhibited their work in the Willis Gallery, formerly a burnt-out, vacant storefront that became an artist-run cooperative. Newton first achieved recognition for his abstract drawings and later for his sculptures that he referred to as "projects" assembled from unconventional materials. He has been described as an artist who "chose to concretize rather than verbalize his ideas," and he rarely gave interviews or wrote about his art. Although he worked in Detroit, he also spent time in Northern Michigan and on the Great Lakes, and he may be referencing that environment in the Stamelos Drydock works.