THE FOUR SEASONS (Spring and Summer), installation view, site-specific wall painting, Garry Neill Kennedy: Wall Paintings and Related Works 1974-1995 exhibition, Portikus, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 1998. Photo: Wolfgang Günzel.
THE FOUR SEASONS (Summer), installation view, site-specific wall painting, Garry Neill Kennedy: Wall Paintings and Related Works 1974-1995 exhibition, Portikus, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 1998. Photo: Wolfgang Günzel.
THE FOUR SEASONS, internal installation detail with other works, site-specific wall painting, Garry Neill Kennedy: Wall Paintings and Related Works 1974-1995 exhibition, Portikus, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 1998. Photo: Wolfgang Günzel.
THE FOUR SEASONS, installation detail, site-specific wall painting, Saint Mary's University Art Gallery, Halifax, NS, 1996.
THE FOUR SEASONS (Summer and Autumn) (1998), paint on stretched canvas, exhibition view from Work of Four Decades, National Gallery of Canada (NGC), Ottawa, 2000. Photo: NGC, Clive Cretney
THE FOUR SEASONS (Winter and Spring) (1998), paint on stretched canvas, exhibition view from Work of Four Decades, National Gallery of Canada (NGC), Ottawa, 2000. Photo: NGC, Clive Cretney
THE FOUR SEASONS (Summer) (1998), paint on stretched canvas, exhibition view from Work of Four Decades, National Gallery of Canada (NGC), Ottawa, 2000. Photo: NGC, Clive Cretney
THE FOUR SEASONS (Spring), installation detail, paint on pinstripe fabric in the dimensions of a suit in Kennedy's size, Four Seasons on Four Shouting Heads exhibition, CANADA, New York, 2002. Photo: CANADA
THE FOUR SEASONS (Summer), installation detail, paint on pinstripe fabric in the dimensions of a suit in Kennedy's size, Four Seasons on Four Shouting Heads exhibition, CANADA, New York, 2002. Photo: CANADA
THE FOUR SEASONS (Winter and Spring), installation detail, paint on pinstripe fabric in the dimensions of suits in Kennedy's size, Four Seasons on Four Shouting Heads exhibition, CANADA, New York, 2002. Photo: CANADA
THE FOUR SEASONS (1998), installation view, latex house paint on canvas, 68" x 45" each, QUID PRO QUO and THE FOUR SEASONS exhibition, Diaz Contemporary, Toronto, 2012. Photo: Diaz Contemporary
THE FOUR SEASONS (Winter) (1998), detail, latex house paint on canvas, 68" x 45", QUID PRO QUO and THE FOUR SEASONS exhibition, Diaz Contemporary, Toronto, 2012. Photo: Diaz Contemporary
THE FOUR SEASONS (Spring) (1998), detail, latex house paint on canvas, 68" x 45", QUID PRO QUO and THE FOUR SEASONS exhibition, Diaz Contemporary, Toronto, 2012. Photo: Diaz Contemporary
THE FOUR SEASONS (Summer) (1998), detail, latex house paint on canvas, 68" x 45", QUID PRO QUO and THE FOUR SEASONS exhibition, Diaz Contemporary, Toronto, 2012. Photo: Diaz Contemporary
THE FOUR SEASONS (Autumn) (1998), detail, latex house paint on canvas, 68" x 45", QUID PRO QUO and THE FOUR SEASONS exhibition, Diaz Contemporary, Toronto, 2012. Photo: Diaz Contemporary
THE FOUR SEASONS (1998), installation view, latex house paint on chipboard, 68" x 68", QUID PRO QUO and THE FOUR SEASONS exhibition, Diaz Contemporary, Toronto, 2012. Photo: Diaz Contemporary
THE FOUR SEASONS (1998), detail, latex house paint on chipboard, 68" x 68", QUID PRO QUO and THE FOUR SEASONS exhibition, Diaz Contemporary, Toronto, 2012. Photo: Diaz Contemporary
THE FOUR SEASONS (2001), installation view, latex house paint on archival mat board, 25" x 25" each, QUID PRO QUO and THE FOUR SEASONS exhibition, Diaz Contemporary, Toronto, 2012. Photo: Diaz Contemporary
THE FOUR SEASONS (Winter) (2001), detail, latex house paint on archival mat board, 25" x 25", QUID PRO QUO and THE FOUR SEASONS exhibition, Diaz Contemporary, Toronto, 2012. Photo: Diaz Contemporary
THE FOUR SEASONS (Spring) (2001), detail, latex house paint on archival mat board, 25" x 25", QUID PRO QUO and THE FOUR SEASONS exhibition, Diaz Contemporary, Toronto, 2012. Photo: Diaz Contemporary
THE FOUR SEASONS (Summer) (2001), detail, latex house paint on archival mat board, 25" x 25", QUID PRO QUO and THE FOUR SEASONS exhibition, Diaz Contemporary, Toronto, 2012. Photo: Diaz Contemporary
THE FOUR SEASONS (Autumn) (2001), detail, latex house paint on archival mat board, 25" x 25", QUID PRO QUO and THE FOUR SEASONS exhibition, Diaz Contemporary, Toronto, 2012. Photo: Diaz Contemporary
THE FOUR SEASONS (Spring) (2001), paint swatch detail, latex house paint on archival mat board, 25" x 25", QUID PRO QUO and THE FOUR SEASONS exhibition, Diaz Contemporary, Toronto, 2012. Photo: Diaz Contemporary
THE FOUR SEASONS (Summer) (2001), paint swatch detail, latex house paint on archival mat board, 25" x 25", QUID PRO QUO and THE FOUR SEASONS exhibition, Diaz Contemporary, Toronto, 2012. Photo: Diaz Contemporary
THE FOUR SEASONS (Winter) (2001), paint swatch detail, latex house paint on archival mat board, 25" x 25", QUID PRO QUO and THE FOUR SEASONS exhibition, Diaz Contemporary, Toronto, 2012. Photo: Diaz Contemporary
THE FOUR SEASONS (Autumn) (2001), paint swatch detail, latex house paint on archival mat board, 25" x 25", QUID PRO QUO and THE FOUR SEASONS exhibition, Diaz Contemporary, Toronto, 2012. Photo: Diaz Contemporary
Garry in his office with THE FOUR SEASONS (1998), detail, latex house paint on chipboard, 68" x 68" each, c.2000s.
THE FOUR SEASONS (1996)
Part of Kennedy's exploration into the logic of commercial paint names, THE FOUR SEASONS is a series of paintings determined by the "seasonal" names of various colours. For this work, Kennedy utilizes a selection of colours from various house paint brands, creating one work per season using colours such as "April Mist" or Green Bud" for his spring painting, and "Autumn Gold" or "Fallen Leaves" for the autumn piece. Kennedy created multiple iterations of this work between the mid-1990s and early-2010s; including site-specific wall-paintings, canvas works and paintings on chipboard and pinstripe suit fabric.
Each time the work was shown an accompanying folder was published, alphabetically listing the paint colours used in each season's painting. For the works debut exhibition at Cold City in 1996, Kennedy headed the lists with titles of songs sung by Franki Valli and The Four Seasons, as well as noted "The Four Seasons" hotel which he was saying at the time of the show. In subsequent folders, Kennedy noted the names of the companies who produced the paint as well as his process of application, at times he notes using only "one brushload of each colour" and other times two brushloads.
THE FOUR SEASONS has been exhibited notionally and internationally, including: Cold City Gallery (Toronto, 1996); Saint Mary's University Art Gallery (Halifax, NS, 1996); Portikus (Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 1998); as part of Kennedy's Retrospective Work of Four Decades at The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia (Halifax, NS, 2000), The National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa, 2000), and Beaverbrook Art Gallery (Fredericton, NB, 2001); Wynick/Tuck Gallery, Toronto, 2000; CANADA (New York, USA, 2002); Diaz Contemporary (Toronto, 2012).