Pendulum Gallery hosts a pop-up exhibition by Gallery Jones, presenting important paintings from the estate of Peter Aspell (1918-2004). Aspell is one of the most significant and enigmatic artists that this City has produced, and his influence continues to be seen in the work of the younger generation of artists working today.

Peter Aspell was born in Vancouver in 1918, and had his first formal training at the Vancouver School of Art from 1937-1941. After WW2 he continued art studies at the Academie de Ghent in Belgium. Aspell later became an art teacher at the Vancouver School of Art - today’s Emily Carr University – during the period 1948-1970, teaching alongside Jack Shadbolt and Gordon Smith. His first exhibition was at the Vancouver Art Gallery in 1955.

Aspell was unabashed, controversial, and uncompromising, and although his work is often imbued with defiance and satire, it is also weighted with a profound sensitivity toward the human condition. The Exhibition will focus on the unique primitive-expressionist style that Peter developed in the late 1970s and continued until his passing in 2004.

He is included in numerous private and public collections including : National Gallery of Canada, the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Hamilton Art Gallery, the Kelowna Art Gallery, the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, The Winnipeg Art Gallery, The University of British Columbia, and the Bundy Art Gallery.

Rounding out the exhibition and giving context to Aspell’s work will be paintings by venerated Canadian artists Enn Erisalu (1943-2005), Pierre Coupey, and Gary Pearson.

Image: Peter Aspell, Caravaggio Machine Playing Bach, 2002
c. The Estate of Peter Aspell