I

The Final Memo

2024 · Oil-based aerosol paint on canvas · 20" x 48" (50.8 x 121.92 cm)
Kevin Jenne

Paired poem: “The Final Memo” by Irving Layton, an early poem quoted in Elspeth Cameron’s Irving Layton: A Portrait(Stoddart, Toronto, 1985)

The Final Memo grew out of the ekphrastic process I developed in collaboration with the McGill Poetry Matters collective, where a poem is translated into abstract visual experience rather than literal illustration. The painting takes its title from a poem Irving Layton wrote as a young man, which I found in Elspeth Cameron’s biography of him. I was looking for something raw that expressed true human emotion, which is what Layton is renowned for, and I particularly enjoyed reading about his early years.

The poem is about the loss of his cat, Mortimer, his first experience of death. His tribute to an animal friend touched me deeply. The feeling went beyond the page and stayed with me. I have since sent this short poem to friends and family who were grieving, and it has brought them comfort. The painting is meant to move beyond the physical and show the power of a beautiful presence in life.

The painting doesn’t illustrate the poem. It holds its feeling in radiant colours set against a distressed blue. A band of black cuts through the surface like a rod measuring our lives against theirs. Layered texture and strong contrast create a balance between life and death.

I painted it outdoors on the evening of September 24, 2024, at 1507 Docteur-Penfield in Montreal. It was a mild evening in what became the warmest September on record for the city. The rain began while I was working, so I brought the canvas indoors to dry, and the work was not disturbed. It is smaller than most of my ice paintings, but the balance of colour and the defined texture make it one of the best examples of the ice paintings I have created.

The Final Memo was created for Abstractions, my December 2024 exhibition with the University Club of Montreal.

.