Paul Kuhn joins TrépanierBaer

TrépanierBaer is delighted to announce the representation Canadian painter Paul Kuhn. Kuhn (b. 1950, Port Alberni, British Columbia) lives and works in Calgary and is the owner of the respected Paul Kuhn Gallery.

Kuhn received his BFA (with distinction) from the University of Victoria in 1974 and his MFA from the University of Saskatchewan in 1976.

His abstract paintings are characterized by structural rigor, tonal subtlety and a sustained attention to surface. Kuhn’s practice is an exploration of the basic elements of abstract painting: colour, line, shape, texture and surface. His work operates through the fine tuning of layered fields with measured intervals and restrained chromatic relationships that reward prolonged looking. Edges matter, light matters and the tension between gesture and control matters. There is a meditative quality to the work. Fields of tone hover at the edge of differentiation; surfaces register shifts in density that only gradually reveal themselves. Kuhn has said that “any painting is a process of discovery and surprise.” His surfaces can feel atmospheric yet structured – hovering between material fact and optical experience.

Influenced by the traditions of European modernism and American minimalism within the context of Canadian abstraction Paul Kuhn’s practice represents a continuation and a counterpoint. It continues a commitment to seriousness of form and disciplined inquiry while offering a quiet counterpoint to contemporary tendencies toward market spectacle and immediacy.

Paul Kuhn’s return to visibility as an artist, after decades of shaping the careers of others, invites reflection on authorship and legacy. The paintings read as meditations on duration, on what it means to remain committed to a language over time, to refine rather than reinvent, to deepen rather than expand. They are works made from a life in art, not adjacent to it.

TrépanierBaer will present Paul Kuhn’s work in an exhibition in March with further details to be announced.

For enquires please contact: info@tbg1.com or call 403-244-2066.