The Magic Hour: Part II Drives Home Its Message

By Mary Frances Hill
West Ender, Vancouver BC
April 12, 2007

A little boy stands alone in a beautiful coastal landscape and says, simply, “Zoom zoom.”

The TV spot may have made millions for Mazda, but the numerous ads just like it crystallize the rupture between advertising and reality for Chris Woods, an artist who has made his reputation on work that illuminates consumer culture

In The Magic Hour: Part II, Woods continues the theme of his June 2004 exhibit, The Magic Hour, to depict the gap between commerce’s fantasy images and the middle-class people they want to attract. “How many sunset-bathed desert roads does the average commuter have all to themselves on the way to work? Last time I checked, there were several million other drivers on North America’s highways,” Woods says

Woods peoples his pieces with his friends, posing them in positions of surreal fancy. In the painting “Six Point Adjustable” (below), for instance, a barely-clothed woman seems to stop traffic with a smile and an upraised hand; in “Cortez,” a couple look as though they’ve stopped suddenly on the highway, so that the woman can either knight, or behead, a man on his knees. In both, the background scenery is majestic Americana. “I think advertising pushes further into the realm of the surreal than art ever could,” Woods says

The Magic Hour: Part II runs at the Diane Farris Gallery (1590 W. 7th) to April 28.