Francisco De la Barra, Stephen Andrews, and Paul P. at Paul Petro, Toronto

By Terence Dick

Francisco De la Barra, Azul 01, 2024, ink on Winsor & Newton paper. Courtesy of the artist.

If you grew up in the city and spent days on end at the public swimming pool because it was the cheapest form of daycare, you know the sensation of chlorine-singed eyeballs and the lingering scent of that chemical cleanser as it lifted off your sweaty body late at night when you collapsed into bed. During our current heat wave, if you happened to have forgotten your goggles when you made it to the local outdoor pool to swim some laps, you might have revisited that sensation after soaking your sockets in the disinfectant for half an hour — emerging from the water to gaze at a cloudy world through bloodshot eyes. Going from there to see the trio of artists gathered for the summer exhibition at Paul Petro might then seem like a bad idea, but because the work on display is invested in the phenomenology of looking, perhaps the better way to view it is with unsettled vision.

Francisco De la Barra, Lit 02, 2025, China ink on Fabriano paper. Courtesy of the artist.

Experience is always unsettled — a truth that becomes more self-evident the older you get. Even if your sight wasn’t made self-conscious by the effects of the chlorine, the radiance of the sun on closed eyes turns bodies on the pool deck into a mirage of overexposed silhouettes when you take a peek. Montreal-based artist Francisco De la Barra’s watery ink portraits reduce the human form to light and dark: the former is the paper itself, so that figure and ground are intertwined, while the latter resembles stormy night skies. A selection of these bodies are splayed in bed, overcome with the heat. Just like goggles shield your vision from the distortions of water or toxins, separating you from the environmental conditions that would otherwise mediate your experience, air conditioning creates a false atmosphere to insulate you from the ambient temperature that makes summer so oppressive. There is a season to these pictures that carries a weight for those attuned to it.

Stephen Andrews, James, son of Alphaeus, from The Apostles, 1998, oil and graphite on parchment paper. Photo: LF Documentation

The eroticism of the male body is the dominant theme that links De la Barra’s work to the two other artists with whom Petro has paired him. Stephen Andrews’ portraits from the late nineties are taken from beefcake magazines of the fifties and sixties, while Paul P.’s from the early oughts are sourced from mid-seventies porn. Seen through the lens of desire, these pictures are forever out of reach. Even in the absence of a sexual lure, there is something enticing in this work — doubly so because of the distance from their own creation.

Paul P., Composition in pink (dark spots), 2001, acrylic on canvas. Photo: LF Documentation

Memory is a medium that blurs vision, that burdens interpretation, that determines reactions. Andrews’ portraits layer his history as a survivor of the AIDS crisis with the covert queerness of his mid-century male models with the hiding-in-plain-sight sensuality of saints in torment that inspired him. Paul P., a generation younger, was a crucial member of a turn-of-the-millennium generation of young artists who defined a Toronto art scene that no longer exists while drawing on images from a quarter of a century before that to spotlight a point in LGBTQ+ history that was already lost even then, and then also looking back through art history to previous eras of portraiture.

No sight is innocent, no vision pure. The distortions in each of these artists’ mediums — De la Barra’s China ink, Andrew’s oil and graphite, and P.’s paints — reflect the impurities in your own perceptions and invite you to see their work as a locus of associations. They rely on figures, some turned away, others staring you down, who don’t give themselves away easily. But in a fallen world, everything is a struggle and nothing is settled.

Francisco De la Barra: Cuerpos y Espejos continues until August 16.
Stephen Andrews: Saints and Sinners continues until August 16.
Paul P.: Scattered Pictures continues until August 16

Paul Petro Contemporary Art: www.paulpetro.com
The venue is partially accessible. Please contact the gallery in advance for accommodation arrangements.

Terence Dick is a freelance writer living in Toronto. He is the editor of Akimblog.