Renée Van Halm at General Hardware, Toronto
By Terence Dick
Renée Van Halm, Untitled 2, 2026, acrylic on canvas
My mind has been on my elders of late. Which might seem odd for someone who’d be a sexagenarian if you rounded up his age. But then again, there’s something to be said about the wisdom of experience, and I’m always looking for people wiser than me. I interviewed An Whitlock on Monday about her recent exhibition at Christopher Cutts. I’m looking forward to seeing the Gerald Ferguson show that just opened at Cooper Cole, and I spoke with his widow Cathy Busby for a Cripsters story a while back. This week though, it was Dutch-Canadian artist Renée Van Halm’s collection of new work at General Hardware that had me thinking late in life might be the new sensation when it comes to art.
Renée Van Halm, Untitled 3, 2026, acrylic on canvas
If anything, Van Halm’s canvases reminded me of what a painting can do. On Tuesday, I saw Boots Riley’s new movie I Love Boosters, and I had a similar epiphany about what film can do, how many different ways it can work, and how widely it can engage your senses. That’s what I was thinking in the gallery as I got to know the paintings. Within each one, depth was created, colour would buzz along the edges of sections, hues and patterns that weren’t there would float before my eyes. I’d be reminded of past eras, tricked into seeing faces, and disoriented in my perception of space. All of which might sound like old hat, but there’s an undeniable (though difficult to pinpoint) impression given by a hand that knows what it’s doing, that’s done it for decades, and that telegraphs a confidence earned through practice.
Renée Van Halm, Loose Translation, 2026, acrylic on canvas
First impressions give way to closer investigation and the evidence of labour and effort. The precise lines and rigorous patterns assumed by passing glances are replaced by inconsistencies and aberrations that express rupture or decay. Curvilinear forms derived from silhouettes of the artist’s friends upset an architectural order that breaks down further at the level of medium. The colours aren’t uniform, paint leaks across borders, and the brushwork is visible. All of which makes the work more compelling because the struggle between intention and outcome has always been what keeps art human, and lifelong artists never back away from that demand.
Renée Van Halm, Untitled B, 2026, acrylic on canvas
Living, as we do, in an age of increasingly AI-generated stuff, where authenticity and aura is swapped out for efficiency and effect, those things that remind us who and what we are will become harder and harder to find. Which makes the work of those who remember the before-times all the more important to see. Despite the abstraction, despite the busyness that elicits Op Art vibrations, despite the colours that are too vivid, too gaudy, too Florida to be found in the world outside of an interior design magazine, Van Halm’s paintings are rich in humanity because they come from a place of searching and discovery, which makes them exciting in a way that no LLM can ever understand. Now, give your parents or your grandparents a call and ask them how they’re doing!
Renée Van Halm: Got You Covered continues until June 20.
General Hardware: https://www.generalhardware.ca/
The gallery is not accessible.
Terence Dick is an arts writer living in Toronto. He is the editor of Akimblog.