œParadise Homes Artist: Bruce Parsons at David Kaye Gallery, Toronto, April 2011
My new shield paintings 2009-10 are part of a Panoptic landscape series. They are based on surveillance technology used by Google Earth to reveal giant new fingerprint shapes on the earth. They are suburban developments centred on a community with the Church, or a Synagogue, Mosque, Hindu Temple or Buddhist Shrine. They are instant designs that go from concept to completion in 3 or 4 years. Freeways provide access to infrastructures such as a Shopping Mall, Cineplex and Golf Course designed by the same architectural firms. The new towns are carved into the land with bulldozers. They occupy waste industrial sites, fertile farmland or high ridges with views of the ravine below. When complete they are enclosed with walls for security purposes, and the streets inside end in quiet looping cul-de-sacs. Entrances have grand gates announcing the exclusive nature of the development, such as Paradise Homes, or Fragrant Hills. The source of my landscapes are 
inspired by the city of Vaughan, north of Toronto beside Canada Wonderland, as seen on Google Earth. Vaughan according to Jane Jacobs, expert on urbanism, is one of Canada™s fast growing and prosperous communities. I have also followed the city planning of Moshe Safdie who designed œ Habitat for the 67 Montreal World™s fair. In 1989 he designed one of Israel™s largest cities Modi™in planned for 250 thousand people; by 2007 it had reached 75 thousand.
In order to create a deep surface of the paintings they are built up on spherical bamboo structures, covered by canvas and gesso and embellished by various materials such as beeswax, brass fixtures and gold paint. The shield like appearance suggests a promise of security.
Bruce Parsons is a painter who was born in Montreal, studied at the Ontario College of Art and Design and is a York U Professor Emeritus. He has exhibited widely in Canada, and his work is included in many public collections. Parsons continues his work in his Toronto studio; his concerns are for the fate of our environment, the natural kind and the one of human fabrication. His work may be viewed on the Canadian Art Data Base site. www.ccca.ca
