Gordon Lebredt
information
G111 Exhibitions
Art Rental Service
School of Art
University of Manitoba

Click here to read an essay
by Robert Epp.


Click here to read an essay
by Dr. Jeanne Randolph.


Click here to read an essay
by Cliff Eyland.


Click here to see a
list of works in the exhibition.


Click here to view images
of Gordon Lebredt's work.


Click here for a
commentary by Robert Epp
on Gordon Lebredt's
"white walls:black holes"


Click here for an addendum
by Gordon Lebredt on his
"white walls:black holes"


Click here for images
by Gordon Lebredt from
"white walls:black holes"


Gordon Lebredt

< Gordon Lebredt Work >

ABOVE: Gordon Lebredt, Epokhé.
Photo credit: Ernest Mayer. (Note: To navigate please click arrows or image.)

03
Epokhé
1974-75 / 2005
oil on canvas
160.0 x 241.5 cm
Collection of Gallery One One One,
School of Art, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg
Gift of Brynne Wild and Paul Thomas
(87.002)

Originally painted by Lebredt between 1974 and 1975, Epokhé was only completed in 2005 when Lebredt mounted the painting in a specially constructed, four-part frame and added the acrylic sheeting with the Greek word épokhé (meaning “to suspend or interrupt”). Based on a photograph taken by Lebredt, Epokhé is in part a portrait of Brynne Wild and Paul Thomas who donated the painting to Gallery One One One in 1986. But Lebredt's deliberate application of various painting techniques, which emphasize the constitution of the painting, interferes with a conventional reading of the painting as a portrait. For example, in the foliage at the upper right he experimented with a paint-by-number motif. For the street and curb he used an air brush and stencil technique, and he applied conventional brushwork for the car and house. Consequently, the painting itself is more a technical investigation into the nature of visual perception than an attempt at a faithful reproduction of reality, or an expression of Lebredt's feelings toward his subject.

Lebredt points out that “one important feature of the frame should be mentioned: two of its diagonally opposed corners were 'fractured,' that is to say, the upper right and lower left-hand corners have been severed and then reassembled so that on closer inspection, they may be read as a pair of right-angled brackets. The purpose of ... such framing devices was to assert the necessity of the supplement, of certain parergonal devices.” Lebredt resolved the framing for Epokhé (and Title: not specified) after reading Craig Owens's translation of Jacques Derrida's essay “The Parergon” published in 1979 in October magazine. Lebredt says it was Owens's translation that lead him to “breaking” the corners of the frames for Epokhé and Title: not specified, and to introducing the concept of the parergon or supplement to the two paintings. He wanted to emphasize that “...the border or frame from this point on was to be considered permeable, or more importantly, divisible,” a notion Lebredt has extended to the overall installation of By the Numbers. The large yellow text that partially obscures the scene in Epokhé is another attempt by Lebredt to displace the conventional meaning of the painting. It is Lebredt's way of putting the image under “erasure,” to use Derrida's term, thus forcing the viewer not to take the painting at face value, but to consider other possible meanings or interpretations of the image.

BELOW: Gordon Lebredt's "scan path diagram" of the "field" that served as the basis of the painting. (From Gordon Lebredt, white walls:black holes, supplementary binder for By the Numbers: Horizontal Scan 6 1/4 min., colour photocopy, page 3 of 6. 21.5 x 28.0 cm. Collection of Gallery One One One, School of Art, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg; Gift of Gordon Lebredt.)

Gordon Lebredt Work