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<> Above: Raising the Reds, 1991, oil on canvas, triptych: each panel 386x304.8 cm. Collection Scotia Bank. (Note: To navigate click arrows or image.) RAISING THE REDS, 1991 This imposing work, executed in only a few months, is composed of six canvases, joined by a concealed metal structure to form three panels. We see here a return both of the orange-red tones against a pink ground used in the Slaughtered Flags series (1987) and of the rhythm imposed on the pictorial surface by the vertical "reserve" divisions – which here span the double panels – that have almost become McEwen’s signature. The eye-catching upper sections surmount lower rectangles where, through the semi-transparent grey and white tones of the surface, we catch intimations of a coloured ground – in some places reddish, elsewhere black, more yellow towards the centre of the composition. This was not McEwen’s first foray into large-scale decorative works. In 1963, commissioned by John Parkin, he executed a five-panel ensemble (now dismantled) for Toronto’s airport; then in 1996 he designed a series of stained-glass pieces for Sir George Williams University (now Concordia University) in the university colours; and the following year, he received a commission from Gérard Beaulieu to execute a mural on wood for the Théâtre Port-Royal (now the Théâtre Jean-Duceppe) of Montreal’s Place des Arts. Here, in order to distract the viewer’s eye from the junction between the two sections of each panel and to prevent it becoming a horizontal "line" that would interfere with the functioning of the verticals, McEwen has adroitly left a quite broad margin of red at the top of each of the white sections.