July 1, 2005
Sarah Guerra, Member of the Argentina art critics and the International Art Critics Association (AICA). Secretary of the Regional section of the AICA of Latin America and the Caribean.
1 July 2005
Translated from Spanish, unedited quote
Antoine Gaber is a Canadian painter of international fame. The artwork he creates is significant as he is fully dedicated to his passion for nature. One can say that no landscape is beyond his limits. He paints oceans, snowed forests, grasslands, rivers, flowers … everything that can be painted. He is known to be an impressionist; a present day artist who embraces a style whose roots have not yet stopped its development. Even though Gaber’s artwork has a lot of common characteristics with Impressionist painters (such as love for landscapes or the desire to capture a moment and its ambience), he is a knowledgeable painter with a personal voice and style.
Manet and other impressionists had a different moment vision, an immediate and fleeting vision. This can be perceived, for example, by the observation of the procedures they used on their drawings (sketched and very fast), on the colour emphasis and the lack of dark shadows being replaced by cold blue tones. Impressionists are known to stop their gaze a few centimetres away from the selected object creating a certain vagueness of forms in their artwork. However, beyond similarities and differences, we should state that Antoine Gaber’s artwork defends its own values with his own personal style and astonishment in front of nature. From his inner feelings we can feel the need to create an image, an expression of life; the need to transform a dead matter into something alive. That is the main desire beating in a truthful artist of all times.
Antoine Gaber is a tuned colorist who captures the spiritual ambience of each landscape with its infinite shades and with his sharp sensibility he is able to invent a world that is an expression of universal sense. Through fine arts, those strong feelings he has when he is in front of nature in motion, are dumped into images filled with life. His style presents a defined sketching, while his lights and shadows and sometimes his insinuated “chiaroscuro” reveal the special nature of each motif. He is an observer who enjoys stopping with delight in front of a special bush or flower but without leaving the great sceneries of landscapes.
With his original and current work, Antoine Gaber, during these times of great uncertainty, manages to seize the legacy of beauty left to art by the Impressionists, helping us to keep some values which are about to disappear. This artist knows that in nature some extraordinary harmonies are awaiting to be discovered for those who come close to it with their eyes and their heart wide opened.
Sarah Guerra, Member of the Argentine Association of Art Critics and the International Association of Art Critics
SARAH GUERRA
Born in Montevideo (Uruguay). She has been an art critic and a researcher in Montevideo and Buenos Aires since 1975. She is also an art historian. Ms. Guerra has participated in several art books from Argentina such as “Forty Argentine Sketchers” and ” Forty Argentine Sculptors”.
She exercises her skills as an art critic in different broadcasting companies such as Radio Nacional and Radio SODRE, in Uruguay.
Member of the Argentine Association of Art Critics and the International Association of Art Critics and also a member of the Regional department of the International Association of Art Critics (IAAC) for Latin America and the Caribbean.
