One evening following the arrival of the new year, I sat with my mother in her living room, considering grief. As the earth completed its annual turn, she counted out losses, their orbits expanding out from her life. We considered hard questions: How do we really comfort each other, much less ourselves? What can we do with the weight of it all?

Jack Bishop’s reflections on related questions in his studio last year manifested in a reflection of mourning at Katzman Art Projects. In his new series arrangements, on view December 8 – January 20, 2024, explosions of blooms filled the gallery, each relegated to tidy, uniform 11×14 canvases. Working in limited territory like this can be ideal for art therapy, taking as long to fill as the time required for a feeling to be processed. In this way the series speaks to the regenerative and recursive nature of mourning, with seemingly always more to process.

In arrangements, Bishop takes a new approach to a traditional memento mori motif, employing the dual symbolism of flowers as tokens for both mourning and celebration. Through subtle variations on the theme, the artworks gently prompt viewers to reflect on life’s impermanence. Bishop states that the title of the exhibition—arrangements—refers to the simultaneous meanings of “floral arrangements, arrangements in paint handling and composition, and also final arrangements”, with individual works titled for the standardized (and often trite) words of comfort repeated to mourners: “well wishes”, “thoughts and prayers”, “let me know if there is anything I can do, anything at all”.

This series, in its repeated variations of the identifiable floral icon, gives him the space to explore mark-making. In these works, delicious globules of paint are squirted into form, a satisfying direct-from-the-tube impasto, with paint embodying the varied openings through which it has passed—no sense in denying the truth, after all: we are shaped in exiting the world. In short, we are shaped by grief.

Bishop selected nuanced palettes for each work in his studio, and the gallery has thoughtfully presented his series in colour families, providing viewers with a cohesive and visually engaging experience. Working in acrylic, oil and gouache, Bishop achieves a delicate and expert balance of iridescence, metallic shimmer, gloss and matte. He plays in tonal shifts and luminosity, highlighting prismatic colour choices, with rainbow blips of reflection often extending into the empty space of the canvas beyond the confines of each bouquet’s vase (“you were so good to me”, 2023). In some instances, painted details are layered onto thicker dried forms (“I didn’t mean it that way”, 2023). Other works venture further from their floral origin: In “take care” (2023), the impasto blossom squirts dematerialize into a multicoloured shimmer. Returning to a multi-pointed starburst motif in many of the works, the shape and weight of the brushstrokes is reminiscent of Maritime gem Maud Lewis. Bishop’ s skillful use of colour is playfully disrupted by his naive-art refusal to blend his paint.

This exhibition demonstrates the steady evolution in Bishop’s method. From the use of photography and collage to develop his painted Brandscapes (2019), documenting the liminal consumerist public spheres off the Maritime highway (cheekily responding to the group of sevens proud nationalist landscapes), while for his 2021 exhibition Road Trip Playlist he shifted to a focus on memory and signifier celebrating the technicolour interpersonal joys of his marriage. In this new work Bishop moves inward to the deeply personal, through the repeated use of an iconic signifier. I find Bishop’s artistic evolution intriguing, as he transitions from painting consumerist landscapes to exploring the consumer-friendly world of repetitive and mass-produced signifiers, a departure that poignantly turns away from expressions of grief, calling back to the manufactured sentimentality of Hallmark cards.

In contrast to their heavy inspiration, the paintings themselves are playful and vibrant, seemingly determined to be in love with life. Expanding upon the foundation laid in Road Trip Playlist, Bishop’s use of psychedelic colours renders his mundane subjects fantastical. He pulls out the myriad magical interpretations of the visual stimuli found in our everyday life, honouring his setting, lovingly recording all that which we are too temporally close to appreciate.