While waiting for spring's blossoms: "Meeting The Artist"by Ann Rosenburg,Vancouver Sun:

The snow isn't your only clue that winter is here. Diane Farris Gallery's annual invitational has become a seasonal event. This third show, like its predecessors, gives Farris the opportunity to bring public attention to artist who are not part of her regular stable. This year, tthe mix is interesting in its technical and thematic diversity. Gideon Flitt's three neo-Baroque psycho-dramas are real attention-getters. It's clear that this recent immigrant from London brings with him a taste for the grand historical works that fill major European museums.

A meticulously painted velvet drape figures prominently in each of Flitt's mammoth canvases. In The Theft, it swathes the chest of drawers on top of which a young naked man crouches as through he is about to become a sacrificial lamb. In The Adoption, the drape is held aloft, by a middle-aged man who seems about to swaddle (or suffocate) a hooded victim. In The Room, the cloth veils the form of a lovely female nude.

What's interesting about these compositions is that the relationships between the precisely rendered figures remain mysteries. Think of the peculiar narratives of mannerist paintings, Parmigiano's Madonna of the Long Neck, for instance. Flitt uses contemporary artifacts as symbols: 13 irons hung on a string like cloves of garlic, a fire hydrant, a toaster. It struck me that these paintings are like Chris Woods' narratives for angst-ridden grown-ups.