Tony Kaplan is a painter and a prolific poet, so one might be excused for comparing some of his poetry with his art; after all they emerge from the same place. At first this fusion might seem to be a little surprising, especially as as many of his poems are intricate and detailed; sometimes they are highly complex in nature; at times they are dark; at times they have an uplifting humour.

However, at first glance this collection of paintings appears to be very different from his poetry. Whereas his poetry provides us with a clear vision of the real world as seen through the eyes of the poet, his paintings appear to come from an entirely different world, one in which form has given way to feeling and we are presented with a purity and innocence that has almost child-like qualities.

Many of the works in the collection consist of simple yet evocative shapes painted in a single colour; others are more complex with contrasting and complimentary colours, while one of the paintings appears to be a fusion of all the others.

The first thing that we notice is his complete freedom of expression which is uncluttered by our normal day to day experience. There is a boldness of line that is visually stirring and emotionally evocative. He makes great use of white space too; he sees no need to fill the canvas with unnecessary detail.

If you want to place Kaplan in a particular space, then it would be that of a contemporary abstract artist. What he does is embrace colour, shape and line in order to create compositions that exist independently of external reference; that have their own life; that exist without specific reference to the real world as we know it.

At times his abstraction appears to be complete; at times there appears to be an ephemeral reference to our world though at a more fundamental level; perhaps it is a note of music; perhaps it is the locus of a falling leaf; perhaps it is no more than a breath of wind.

Where Kaplan is most successful in his endeavours is in evoking emotions in the observer. There is no doubt that the paintings emerge from his inner thoughts and feelings with the desire to convey these to his audience. Do we feel the same emotions when we view these paintings as he felt when he created them? It is impossible to say, but that doesn’t really matter. The important thing is that they make us feel; it is not necessary to understand those 

Kind regards

Gary Shorthouse, 31/08/2013