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Sunday, October 23, 2011

A Cycle Ends

This coming week, I move out of the studio that I've occupied since the beginning of November 2010.

My stint as Artist in Residence at Harcourt House is winding down. My exhibition, PileDriver, showing alongside Stacey Cann's presentation, Personal Matter, reflects the range of directions that I've taken during the past 12 months. The forecast is good for a continuation of the subject matter that I'm working with. Breaking away from expected, empirical depictions of waste disposal practices, land, water and atmosphere appears to have been key; the crowbar needed to pry me away from hitherto pedestrian notions of what the paintings should look like. Creative liberation can be a gradual thing, it turns out.
I'll miss the community at Harcourt House Arts Centre. Not quite like an extended family, but I knew when I trundled down the corridor in the annex, or trotted up the stairs to the galleries in the main building, that I'd be running into other artists, engaging in dialogues that might be random, absurd or meaningful. I am grateful and proud to have served as HH's A.I.R. It was an honour that I took seriously! The baton is passed to Sydney Lancaster, whose talent, energy and forthright manner will positively effect all those artists and art enthusiasts that she'll come in contact with. She's already immersed in Edmonton's arts milieu, having been Administrative Officer and Development Officer - from 2007-2010  - and now volunteering at Latitude 53, another of this city's esteemed artist run spaces. Have fun with it, Sydney! Represent!

http://members.shaw.ca/sidhe/Gallery_Site/Artists_Statement_and_CV.html

                               

                                             Views of the Harcourt House
                                             annex studio after I first moved in:








                                          The floor


                                           Artworks by:
                                           Jack Niven
                                           Peter von Tiesenhausen
                                           Angela Inglis


                                           Fresh gesso!


                                                                           

Next posts will feature art that I have (recently) found stimulating, profound, sublime, epic, or having all of those qualities. Installation shots of PileDriver will be posted soon, as well.

















Monday, August 22, 2011

Polychromatic Eyegasm: Recent Paintings by Susan Ross

 Crane and Nanabush  2009   oil on canvas   18 x 24"

Susan Ross was born in Thunder Bay, Ontario. She attended The Alberta College of Art and Design between 1979 and 1983, majoring in painting. Her art production had slowed down in the closing years of the late 20th Century but has recently been 'ramping up'. After creating a series of landscapes that fall somewhere between Fauvist and Tom Thomsonesque sensiblities, Ross embarked on a cycle of work employing imagery derived from petroglyphs that she had researched during a visit to Woodview, near Peterborough, Ontario. These sacred and mysterious rock drawings take on new meaning(s) when filtered through Ross's aesthetic scope. Riotous skeins of dizzying hallucinatory colour coalesce with retina-burning intensity in this group of paintings; pictures that could induce the very visions that inspired them.

Contact Susan Ross at:  rossfloyd@rogers.com 


  Geometric Trance  2011  oil on canvas   36 x 30


  Kitchi-Manitou    2009     oil on canvas      48 x 36



 Shaman Vessels   2010    oil on canvas  40 x 30




 Shaman's Gallery (tryptich)    2010    oil on canvas  30 x 120




 Shaman's Gallery  Part I     2010   




 Shaman's Gallery   Part II   2010




 Shaman's Gallery  Part III    2010





 Solar Boats    2009   oil on canvas   48 x 36       


 Soul Boat   2010    oil on canvas   30 x 30





 Woman and Double Snake    2010      oil on canvas  36 x 48





 Cumash Cosomology   2011    oil on canvas  30 x 36





Agawa Rock    2009    oil on canvas     40 x 60

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Images of Interest

A woodpecker that I found behind my car



'Mending' firewood with a cast



A stack of documents



A really long carrot




Tumours



 
 http://www.asgercarlsen.com/





Bacteria as pop art (contributor: Julian Forrest)




Maunsell Forts




C-130 Hercules cockpit/nose




Ungulate 



Melting Deer




Launch gone terribly wrong





Golden Launch Green Dawn  2006 Stephen Hannock  12 x 10"  oil/canvas 




SM-3 Ship Launch   2009    David Janzen     oil/canvas     12 x 12"
 



Doe Sinnlichkeit    Franz Stuck    1891   etching




October    William Merritt Chase




Ferdinand    Robert Lawson   1936





   Tintin      Raymond Lemstra







Tilted Mule  2008    Jack Niven 9.5 x 6 x 1"  oil/masonite





Universal Mule   2008  Jack Niven  16 x 7.6'  latex on plywood





Goatse   Shary Boyle  polymer night-glo clay & goauche  9 cm tall




Below: An informal survey of my own efforts, from 1985 - present.
(Requiring annotation)