October 1979

Curator: It gives me a sense of immense, quiet watchfulness. The owl seems like a guardian. Editor: Indeed. What strikes you about this piece, formally? Alex Colville created "October" in 1979 using pencil and pastel on Strathmore paper. He captures a powerful great horned owl perched on a bare branch, gazing directly out at the viewer, moon to the bottom-left. Curator: I feel it's very narrative in mood, a study in watchful gazes. There's the cool glow of the moon juxtaposed with the owl’s yellow eyes, making me wonder, what is *he* looking at? And how does the viewer figure into it? Colville definitely prompts a strong relationship between the subject and the spectator here. Editor: That makes me think about the owl as a frequent figure in art and mythology. Traditionally it’s associated with wisdom, but also death, the nocturnal, secrets. Here the composition makes him an arbiter, perched between a bright but hidden moon and, well, us. It becomes an almost totemic image. Curator: Yes, like he's privy to something we aren't. The color palette really enhances this effect, too. The subdued, almost monochromatic tones punctuated by the gleam of the moon and those intense yellow eyes give it a kind of heightened stillness. It feels very private, almost like an intimate experience or memory rendered in muted hues. Editor: I think that relates to how we culturally assign symbolic power. This bird feels older than time; owls echo across civilizations, in indigenous art and classical mythology, even cartoons. Our cultural memory makes the experience feel almost instinctive, wouldn’t you say? Curator: It’s interesting how Colville pulls off this sense of stillness in motion. His realist style grounds the creature firmly in our own plane of reality, as opposed to mythic abstraction. Even its perfectly rendered feathers seem alert, as though it might fly off at any moment. But ultimately, Colville transforms the everyday into something undeniably powerful and slightly unknowable. Editor: Absolutely, which leaves us contemplating the depth of symbolism behind deceptively still, realistic renderings of common sights. An impressive act of distilling a feeling into something permanent.