Diaz Contemporary is pleased to present new work by Victoria-based artist Robert Youds, a leading practitioner of light-based art. The exhibition, his third with the gallery, includes new sculptures and paintings that demonstrate Youds’ ongoing interest in colour and light as apparatus with which to experience perceptual and atmospheric conditions related to the human, contemporary, and urban realm.
Youds describes his practice as involving the use of “what can be defined as an abstract vocabulary to explore existential concerns. At the core of this goal is always the desire to cultivate a condition that induces individualized feelings in the mind and body of the beholder.” He finds parallels between his work and paintings and sculptures from the early 20th century, particularly certain futurist works, early proto-pop art, and other visual expressions rooted in urban life, such as Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks. Youds writes that in these works he finds “a persistent form of energy that powerfully underscores the almost tangible, yet subjective, urban condition. My most recent structures, both the sculptures and paintings, also share these human states.”
Robert Youds completed his MFA from York University and he holds a BFA from the University of Victoria. Recent solo shows include: Another Appearance Made Visible in LOLA in London, ON, Time Must Have a Stop or look out your window at the Ministry of Casual Living in Victoria, and beautifulbeautiful artificial field, at The Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. Selected group shows include: It is What It Is at the National Gallery of Canada, PAINT: a psychedelic primer, at the Vancouver Art Gallery; and The Shape of Colour: Excursions in Colour Field Art 1950-2005, at the Art Gallery of Ontario.
  
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