Sunday, January 30, 2011

Ken Williams Gets Back to Nature



Ken Williams, of Golden, BC, is an outdoors man. He is one of those rare artists who is equally at home looking down the sights of his rifle, flyfishing, or painting the panorama of the country he loves.

Ken painted the above work on the shoulder blade of one of the moose he had bagged.
Take a good look at it. You will see in an instant, that Ken knows his stuff when it comes to acrylic painting. He has great tonal values of light which move from dark foregrounds into light backgrounds and he has interpreted the colours of the foothills well, and he has deftly painted a group of bisons into the foreground of his work.

Ken invited me into his studio and told me about sculpting a big totem for the home of a friend. And, in between times in our conversation he hauled a huge piece of milled mountain cedar into his home. He brought it down from the mountains, and he figured that it may have been well over a hundred years old when it got caught in a fire. His plan was to take a large, frozen bullhead trout from his freezer, and set it outside in the snow, where he would measure it, study it, and then return it to life in a large wooden carving.

Friday, January 28, 2011

The Canada Council Art Bank

There are all kinds of banks out there; blood banks, organ and tissue banks, financial banks. So, it stands to reason, I guess, that there is a national art bank maintained by the Canada Council for the Arts.

The size of this bank is rather surprising. They have some 12,000 works consisting of Canadian paintings, sculpture and other works. And, the bank is some 40 years old.

The art bank is part of the federal purse, and there are times when its clasps are rather rusty and hard to open. And, its not without some political manipulation.
For instance, a work by Jean-Paule Riopelle was removed from the walls of the PM's Sussex Street home. But this is neither here nor there, for I don't have any abstractions hanging on the walls of my home. So, it was more then likely a matter of artistic preference. But, even worse is the fact that the butget for the art bank was almost eliminated by the Federal Liberals during a budget cutting period, and the Tories reduced the size of their budget by 50%.

That being said, pictures from the national collection, hang in the offices of our members of parlaiment and in public buildings and the bank serves an important archival and public role in preserving and presenting our country's visual arts.


Canada Council Art Bank: new acquisitions


Barry Ace, Ottawa, ON
Cashing In
Benoit Aquin, Montreal, QC
Sans titre
Arnaqu Ashevak, Cape Dorset, NU
Woman with Bear Cub
Miguel-Angel Berlanga, Ottawa, ON
La connaissance de la nature profonde de la pierre est le fondement même de la sagesse
BGL, Quebec, QC
Villa des Regrets
Kristin Bjornerud, Saskatoon, SK
Encounter with the Bear
Shary Boyle, Toronto, ON
Untitled
Paul Bureau, Montreal, QC,
Passage 12/13/14
Brian Burke, York, PE
Room No. 168
Paul Butler, Winnipeg, MB
Winnipeg without the Jets
Christine Carty, Masset, BC
Cedar Hat
Dana Claxton, Vancouver, BC
Tatanka Wanbli Chekpa Wicincala
Sébastien Cliche, Montreal, QC
Dans la solitude il n'y a pas de trahison
Catherine Collins, Winnipeg, MB
The Core (Salvation, Cold Beer, Hot Soup)
Robin Collyer, Toronto, ON
Regents Park
Carole Condé & Karl Beveridge, Toronto, ON
Not a Care, 1400
Marlene Creates, Portugal Cove, NL
Wind Gusts, Falling Rock, Alberta 2000
Michel Daigneault, Toronto, ON
Au Cœur des Choses
Chris Dorosz, San Francisco, CA
Stasis Series #9
Keesic Douglas, Toronto, ON
Product of Canada
William Eakin, Winnipeg, MB
Space (6034)
Joe Fafard, Lumsden, SK
Nicola 1/5
David Ferguson, L'Amble, ON
The last day of the Muskokas
Randall Finnerty, Montreal, QC
Wounded Moose
Adrian Fish, Halifax, NS
Stage 1-3
Jérôme Fortin, Montreal, QC
Untitled #6 from the “Screen” series
Daphne Gerou, Toronto, ON
We Are Betrayed
Lorraine Gilbert, Ottawa, ON
Here, There, Everywhere, from: Icelandic Walks, 2005
Greg Girard, Shanghai, China
Huashan Lu House #1
Sky Glabush, Edmonton, AB
Consultation
Jim Graham, Saskatoon, SK
Darth
Colwyn Griffith, New York, NY
Northern Lights
Toni Hafkenscheid, Toronto, ON
Alex Fraser Bridge
Marla Hlady, Toronto, ON
Proposition for Tracing a Conversation
James Hart, Massett, BC
“Sister” - Bear Mother & Twins
Greg A. Hill, Ottawa, ON
Post-card from Kanata
Richard Hines, Halifax, NS
Sliced Apple
Simon Hughes, Winnipeg, MB
Modular Ice-Fishing Tower
Pedro Isztin, Ottawa, ON
Nueva Armenia II, Honduras
Lizzie Ittinuar, Rankin Inlet, NU
Map of Rankin Inlet, Nunavut
Joanne Jackson Johnson, Whitehorse, YT
Air Show Whitehorse Airport 2005 Looking East
David Janzen, Edmonton, AB
Churchill Square Cameras
Marie Lannoo, Saskatoon, SK
Extruded Light #2
Manuel Lau, Montreal, QC
Le chat rouge et chiens jaunes
Bonnie Marin, Winnipeg, MB
Golden Boy
Anne McElroy, Saskatoon, SK
Off Centre
Peter McFarlane, Salt Spring Island, BC
The Messengers
Shawna McLeod, Montreal, QC
LFU 1
David Merritt, London, ON
Untitled (Heart Breaker)
Laura Millard, London, ON
Lac Des Arc: Skate II
Lauren Nurse, Montreal, QC
The Death of Love
Caroline Ouellette, Sainte-Julie, QC
Chardon
Roberto Pellegrinuzzi, Saint-Jean-Port-Joli, QC
Éléments Pour un Paysage (Arbre Bic)
Annie Pootoogook, Cape Dorset, NU
Series of Three Interiors
Michèle Provost, Gatineau, QC
Lou Reed - Perfect Day, from the Series “It's Only Rock and Roll”
William Pura, Stonewall, MB
Esker 2
Joshua Radu, Laval, QC
138 en Charlevoix
Joseph Reyes, Winnipeg, MB
Untitled
Paul Robles, Winnipeg, MB
My Beautiful War (triptych)
Larry Rosso, Vancouver, BC
Salmon Ovoid Panel
Jayce Salloum, Vancouver, BC
Sylvia's shop, cabinet, previous wares holding their own, Main St. (Cordova)
Amanda Schoppel, Davis, CA
Lined Paper
Karen Schulz, Winnipeg, MB
to be continued
Pat Service, Vancouver, BC
Summer Lake V (Flags)
Jaclyn Shoub, Toronto, ON
At This Point in Time (Landscape w. Trees - Large Version)
Gerald Steadman Smith, Stittsville, ON
Andrea Conroy
Steven Stewart, Ottawa, ON
Elementary School Gym
Derek Sullivan, Toronto, ON
Untitled
Moy Sutherland, Victoria, BC
Barnacle Paddle
Jeff Thomas, Ottawa, ON
North American (Indian)
Denyse Thomasos, New York, NY
Dwelling-Well
Larry Towell, Bothwell, ON
Rafah Refugee Camp, Gaza Strip
(residents returning to their destroyed homes after Israeli invasion)
Henri Venne, Montreal, QC
One Last Time Before It Ends
Stephen Waddell, Berlin, Germany
Asphalt Layer #2
Carol Wainio, Ottawa, On
Decoding Rabbit
Carrie Walker, Vancouver, BC
Grey Squirrel, (Sciurus carolinensis) A bemused grey squirrel
Douglas Walker, Toronto, ON
Untitled #764
Eric Walker, Ottawa, ON
Dans le cœur de Montréal
Adrian Williams, Montreal, QC
Listen


Information for this entry was drawn from 'Politicians Have Access to Inventory of Canadian Art.', Toronto Star. Please click here.

The list of recently acquired Canadian Art, can be found on the
Canada Council for the Arts, website. Please click here.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

John Parson Arm Wrestles with the C Devil



Readers of 'The Portrait' may recall the work of John Parson. John lives relatively close to me in this part of Ontario. John produces exciting oils, and when you journey through his galleries, you can see that he has a deep love for nature. His picture 'Fiona' is typical of his works.



John's been on my mind a lot in the last few months, and I thought it was about time to recycle his works on the blog. You know how it is with these things, when you think of someone a lot, they send you a surprising contact. I got his email this morning describing how he was emerging from a recent fight with throat cancer. That hurts when you think that John is a non smoker.
In February I was diagnosed with throat cancer (with enlarged lymph nodes as well…!!!) and I didn't even smoke... cigs!!??..they(Dr's) treated me fast and well , once they knew what I had , my supporting friends were amazing as we waited on all the tests, to find out spacifics. Then once the Dr's decided what had to be done I stayed in Toronto (at Princess Margaret lodge a special low cost cancer hostel ) for seven weeks of radiation and chemo (not fun I don't recommend it …lol) And a the final result is we beat the bastard ,…atleast for now…it looks very good ! The side affects from the treatments have left me without saliva and my taste buds aren't up to scratch (and I've lost 35lbs), but it could be alot worse
….



I am impressed by John's tenacity. The two pictures we see of him were taken on one of his snowshoeing expeditions.

John makes his way through life alternating between New Zealand and Ontario. To see more of his exciting works, please check out his website by clicking here.

Monday, January 24, 2011

John McEwen, Sculptor

Heaven and Earth

Nowhere to stand in the rain? This work was created by sculptor, John McEwen, who was presented with an honourary degree in 2008. Read about this man's accomplished life, below.

Extracted from the Ditwald website. Please click here.

Sculptor John McEwen Receives Honorary Degree at 2007 Fall Convocation
For his substantial, enduring contributions to Canadian arts and the cultural ecology and quality of life in communities in Canada and beyond, The University of Lethbridge is proud confer upon sculptor John McEwen the degree of Doctor of Fine Arts at the 2007 Fall Convocation ceremony on October 13.

Through large-scale public works and small-scale private works, John McEwen�s sculptures have made significant contributions to Canadian arts and have furthered the appreciation of art in Canadian communities and beyond.

Born in Toronto, John McEwen studied at the Ontario College of Art. After his graduation, he and some friends began a gallery called A Space. A year later he worked for a veterinarian in Cookstown, and made some sculptures from cow hide, showing some of them in an exhibition.

Deciding that he wanted to sculpt in steel, in 1972 John McEwen bought an old blacksmith shop in Hillside, Ontario, learned welding skills at George Brown College in Toronto, and taught himself blacksmithing skills. A friend of his, a blacksmith, later rented the front part of the shop, which had become known as Hillside Iron Works.

An artist with persistent vision, John McEwen�s evocative, critically-acclaimed body of work depicts large-scale objects of steel, bronze, or stone, embodying complex, interwoven themes of communication, transportation, and Canadian cultural history. His sculpture reveals many themes associated with the Canadian experience including, as he says, �the idea that culture and ecology are inextricably linked.� John McEwen�s work often uses animal forms, especially dogs, in an exploration of what animals represent to humans.

His striking large-scale sculptures have been installed across Canada and the United States. Examples of his work in Alberta include the sculpture Western Channel, a notable and essential part of the exterior of the U of L�s University Centre for the Arts; Horn and Weaving Fence, which graces the front plaza of the TransCanada Pipelines building in Calgary; and the complex piece One and One, on display in the Southern Alberta Art Gallery.

Outside Alberta, John McEwen�s work has been installed in downtown Toronto; the harbour front, Toronto; the National Aviation Museum in Ottawa; and Queens, New York. John McEwen�s work has been featured in major national collections such as the McLaren Arts Centre in Barrie, Ontario and the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinberg, Ontario. Overseas, he has exhibited his work in France, Germany, Japan, and the U.K.

In addition to being an important Canadian artist, John McEwen is a respected educator who shares his insight with artists, students, and the public. He has taught at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute and the Ontario College of Art.

From the University of Lethbridge website. Please click here.

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Sa Ga Yeath Qua Pieth Tow, or “King of the Maquas' and the culture of painting.




This work is part of the collection of our National Archives and it was painted by Joseph Verelst in 1710 Verelst lived in the years between 1648 and 1734.

I chose this one of the set of 4, because it features Peter Brant, possibly the first of the baptized Brant, family.

When I look at this work, the first thing that captures my attention is Brant's garb. First off, we see Chief Brant wearing a ceremonial red blanket. The red blanket has historical significance as it was traditionally presented as a gift to native peoples by the English, and this blanket may have been presented by Queen Anne.

Brant's toga is a rather unusual garb and it gives him a larger then life historical image. I stumbled over Brant's seemingly gift wrapped feet, but my faithful blog assistant editor, Mo Bayliss assures me that she has seen picture as of men wearing such traditional footwork in early pictures.

When I look at this work, I see the face of a white man. And, horror of horrors - were his breasts really this large? And, what about his tattoos? Has the artist, reworked Chief Brant's painted body designs into tattoos? Is this accurate? I am unaware of North American natives sporting such elaborate body markings but I am no student of Native cultural history.

I am intrigued by the way John Verelst plays with the background light and branches to give Brant a sort of natural halo.

The work appears to have touches of artistic cultural manipulation given the toga and Brant's features, but it is important that we get this straight. We weren't dealing with men who were awestruck by a handful of coloured beads. These were proud native leaders, and this occasion was ceremonial and tremendously respectful. I would suggest that Sa Ga Yeath Qua Pieth was called King, because he was treated as a King and this is the only word the English understood for him. The Mohawks were never, a conquered people and they were certainly not vassals

To visit the site this picture was extracted from, (The Society of 18th Century Gentlemen), please click here.

You may wish to check out these sites for addtional information.
1. Wikipedia. Click here.
2. Flicker. Click here.
3. Canada's Got treasures. Click here.
4. Library and Archives Canada. Click here.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Hang onto Your Hats - This is Paul Rupert at his Best



I am putting this entry up, as a follow up to Ron Morrison's entry.
What a contrast this work presents. What a work of realism.

I captured this work off Paul's website. Take a look at it. Are you ready?
Paul has painted it by pallete knife. It defies the imagination to know how anyone can create such exquisitely soft textures.

Paul's website can be viewed by clicking on his name in the list of featured artists on the right column.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Laurie Near's, Journey into Art via You Tube



Its good to be able to present F-A featured blog artist, through this media.
Enjoy.

Viewers are welcome to visit Laurie's website. Laurie also produces an art newsletter. Please click here.

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Ron Morrison



There are times when you are drawn short and take a deep breath when you see a painting. There is something about it that gobsmacks you. This is one such painting by Courtenay artist, Ron Morrison.
Lets begin with the sky - a wet on wet waterfall of colour that flows down the painting to the reflective metal roof of the building.
In some ways the roof is a continuation of the sky, a tin slide for the light to flow down onto the collection of old vehicles.

Look at Ron's play with shapes and movement. See the flow of white in the lower sky above the building. It leads to the back half of the building. Now, slide down the roof and see how the assembly of cars opens like an inverted V. Talk about design!

The picture is vibrates with activity. The tree branches spike into the sky, the foreground suggestion of grass dances with a variety of improbable colours. Then there are the unpainted sparkles which surround the work and that surprising flow of red in the upper right.

Where does it end? Ron's creative sparkle and vitality has carved him a unique and important place in the Canadian watercolour scene.

To see more of Ron's dramatic watercolours please click here.

Friday, January 14, 2011

Helen Parsons Shepherd 1971



Still Life: Oil on Masonite, 55.9cm x 66cm.

Painted by Helen Parsons Shepherd, the first Newfoundland Student to graduate from the Ontario College of Art.

Please visit the Newfoundland Heritage site to see this work, by clicking here.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Alex Colville, Horse and Train



Having tried and failed to be wilfully scornful of the triumvirate of Great Canadian Painters Bateman, Danby and Trisha Romance, let’s now cast aside the bow and arrow for a look at someone modern and, you know, Canadian, who’s actually matched the spirit of the Group of Seven.

Alex Colville, seen here in a detail from a famous portrait by Arnaud Maggs, was yet another Ontarian, but his folks got him out of there early and took him to someplace real instead, Nova Scotia, when he was still only nine. He showed his gratitude by getting very, very sick, but convalescence in those days meant crayons, and an artist was born in fever. Great stuff.

During that big fight with the Nazis, Colville was a “war artist”, just like some of the Seven, and likened the experience to a novelist training as a police reporter. These war artists were supposed to give the folks back home an accounting of how their tax money was being spent overseas, and it’s likely that many tax bills were promptly paid when Jacques and Gilles Canadien saw Colville’s paintings of the mass graves at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

This business of obtaining and hanging on to freedom, which cropped up in Hitler’s Europe and doesn’t seem to be getting resolved in Bush’s Iraq, got a reading in Colville’s “Horse and Train” in 1954, shown at the top of this post. Hooves pound toward destiny, but unless this nag is mesmerised by the engine’s beacon, surely he can leave that track, right?

Or is the horse being brave? Pig-headed? Stupid? Am I the horse? If so, can I or should I alter my course? If not, does the death of a horse matter to me, especially if its salvation means disrupting the train’s well-planned course?

Extracted from 'The Dali House', please click here.

Monday, January 10, 2011

Work in Freefall: a Deconstructive Landscape Painting by Holly Friesen



Jim Larwill in Cultural Shifts


Landscape painting historically has been directly connected to the exploitation of the environment. Paintings of Canada’s natural beauty opened up our land culturally to the phenomenon of real-estate development; from sea, to sea, to sea. The CNR and CPR as major early patrons of the arts set this trend and painting’s landscape trajectory has followed those tracks up until this very day. The message of grand vistas framed was to create pre-determined ornate views for tourists. Travel by train. Come and see. The call of nature’s vibrant raw colours, repeatedly captured on canvas, marched the masses into cattle cars. Emigrate by rail. Conquer, and then settle.



Landscape is real-estate. Paintings of the “natural” world are travelogue posters evoking a time and place that no longer exists. The world is no longer divided between the town and country. The planet is now Uber-Urban and Sub-Urban. Today within the economic “reality” of global capitalism landscape painting is nothing more than the evocation of the large suburban lot, where you know you are rich when you cannot see or hear your neighbours. It is a home in the Disney World fantasy of the individual’s natural place surviving untouched and uncorrupted by the corporate collective communism of pollution. Landscape painting is the iconic mantra of private property that lives in denial of the growing global terror of universal communism and its ever rapidly growing collective property - pollution. It spreads like an uncontrollable Stalinist storm of fire and ice across our Mother Earth unchecked.

Holly Friesen in her painting “work in freefall” captures the hope and horror of Omnigothic Neofuturism. Here the horizontal cubism of an environmental Geurnica of the groin finds spiritual threads reminiscent of feudal triptych iconography. Her images are more than just an Orientalist idealization of earth spirits. The pastiche of materials in this painting moves human energy through time and space. This heretical work of visual art has a beginning/middle/and end. Words crawl up and down the flowing spines of hot and cold like kisses of wet spent love turning the viewer’s eye into a licking tongue filled with the sensual taste of raw lust set free from the constraints of consumer society where sex is endlessly sold like bland boiled potatoes to the hungry in a spiritual famine. Pass the salt, and if I could only have a little cabbage broth on the side, then I would be apocalyptically happy.

The raven to one side perhaps says it all. We are doomed. The pure virgin dragon of scientific discourse crashes. Its face is dismembered human fertility. It flaps its angelic wings of material promise, but down it goes anyway. The moon spits human kind back down to earth. Technology is swallowed. We fossilise into a whirling dance of orality as our mouths blister with the collective lies that silences our souls. Yet the cancerous flame of our wonton consumptive desire ignites a spark. With in the split alienation of our cloven existence a fire burns deep and it will rises up like a whore of words howling in the night. The yin and yang will twist and turn. The vaginal face of a wolf will speak. The landscape will burst alive with the language of fire.

To read the article at source please click here.

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Fishing Camp, Newfoundland by Kenneth Gordon



This painting by the late Kenneth Gordon of Winnipeg Beach, Manitoba caught my eye for a couple of reasons.

I like Gordon's way of "softening" his work. The rocks are generally rounded and there is a certain intimacy and tenderness in the way they surround the harbour. And, his colours have been softened and muted and this compresses it into a mid tonal range.

When the artist eliminates the power of strong lights and dark tones he mutes the emotive reaction of the viewer and creates an almost nostalgic mood. And, this is well suited for capturing a scene from a province where there has been a shift from its small outer communities.

Take a look at the way he brings sunlight down onto the houses. Its a little like looking througha gauze covered lens. There's a dreaminess about it all.

This painting was extracted from the Pegusas Gallery website. Please click here.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

18th Century Painting of Sa Ga Yeath Qua Pieth Tow, Mohawk Chief



Sa Ga Yeath Qua Pieth Tow (baptized Brant), King of the Maquas, 1710
John Verelst (circa 1648-1734)
oil on canvas ; 91.5 x 64.3 (support).

Custodial history Commissioned for the court of Queen Anne, the paintings appear to have passed from the Royal Collection into the collection of the Petre family of Kent, sometime in the 1830s, and thence continued by family descent to the vendor.

Collection consists of four portraits by Dutch artist (working in England) John Verelst. Commissioned by Queen Anne, they depict four Haudenosaunee delegates, who travelled to London as ambassadors of the Five Nations Confederacy. They are: Tejonihokarawa (baptized Hendrick), named Tee Yee Neen Ho Ga Row, Emperor of the Six Nations; Onigoheriago (baptized John), named Ho Nee Yeath Taw No Row, King of the Generethgarich; Sagayenkwaraton (baptized Brant), named Sa Ga Yeath Qua Pieth Tow, King of the Maquas (Mohawk) and Etowaucum (baptized Nicholas), named Etow Oh Koam, King of the River Nation.


Please click here to view the source, 'Library and Archives Canada.'

Taking all this a step further, you may wish to check the website 'Vanishing Tattoo.Com. Please click here. The editor of this website states that the subject is the grandfather of Joseph Brant, respected Mohawk leader, whom the city of Brantford, Ontario was named after.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Canadian Navy Centennial Art Selection



I chanced upon this painting by Richard Rudnicki, on the Canadian Navy Centennial Page. This is one of a group of Navy Paintings by a number of artists.

On October 15th, 2009 the six centennial paintings commissioned from Canadian renowned marine artists for the Canadian Naval Centennial were unveiled in a ceremony headed by the Chief of Maritime Staff, Vice-Admiral Dean McFadden, OMM, CD. The paintings reflect significant eras in Canadian naval history have been selected. Admiral McFadden was joined by the four artists and they helped him to unveil their respective work of art.


Kudo's to the Canadian Navy to turning to painters to help them celebrate their centennial.

Please click here to view the works on the page. click on the paintings to expand them in size.

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Nude in a Landscape by Edwin Holgate



Nude in a Landscape was painted by Montreal artist Edwin Holgate. Montreal artists had a greater sense of liberation when it came to painting nudes then did their compatriats in Toronto. The above work was done in 1930 and it would have created quite a stir had it been painted at that time in Toronto - or at least publicly shown in 'Toronto The Good'. But it wasn't.

The website, Cybermuse, reports that Hogate had been invited by AY Jackson to join the Group of Seven, but he chose not to join.

A.Y. Jackson first approached Edwin Holgate about joining the Group of Seven in 1926 during their trip to the Skeena River, 12 though he was not actually invited to become a member until 1930. While not a reluctant member of the Group, 13 Holgate did recognize its limitations. The Group's concentration on landscape, he felt, left little room for the figurative work that interested him. Moreover, Holgate's formal interests were quite different from those of the rest of the Group.


'Nude in a Landscape,' has some interesting characteristics. Firstly this is a picture within a picture. There are two pictures here. There is the landscape, and the nude, and both of these separate entities within the work play off each other.

Holgate makes his nude a part of the Canadian Shield by making her curves, mounds and contours a natural extension of the landscape. The colours of the rocks on the left are picked up by the hues of the her upper body and and she is postured in such a way for the contours of her body to provide a visual pathway for the eye to travel into the landscape.

There is an essential contradiction here. While the curves of the sitter's body gives us a route into the work, the nude's face and eyes look across the painting, and not specifically into it. Its not surprising as we look more closely at the nude, to see that she has no interest in hills, rocks and trees. She has other things on her mind.

Lets take a look at the tonal values of the nude. The lighter tones give way to the darker upper shadows which push her face into the background. Is this a morality statement? Is there a dark inner secret? Most certainly she gives the impression of spent passion. Her foreground arm and her face are flushed.

The language of shapes give rise to human emotions. For instance, the rolling hills of the langscape inspire gentle emotional responses. As we move down the painting, we find that the sheet below the nude is crinkled into a network of lines and fragmented shapes which a create a more emotional response.

Source: Information by Christopher Rolfe.

Christopher Rolfe is University Fellow and Honorary Director of the Centre for Quebec Studies, University of Leicester, UK, and a former President of the British Association for Canadian Studies and of the International Council for Canadian Studies.
Please click here to visit Cybermuse.

Fredericks-Artworks Blog, copying policy


The Canadian Copyright act, section 29 reports on fairdealing, that it is not an infringement to reproduce someone else's work for research, study, criticism, review or to report. Which pretty much sums up what this site is about. All content sources, be they artists, printed references, and website url's are respectfully identified on this site. http://http//www.canlii.org/en/ca/laws/stat/rsc-1985-c-c-42/latest/rsc-1985-c-c-42.html

Mission Statement
A Portrait of the Visual Arts in Canada, is intended to celebrate the richness of Canada's visual arts, and to promote the arts in Canada.

Statement of Intent
I make every effort to credit the sources of information used in this blog and to obtain the permission and cooperation of all the works presented by living artists. I try, as much as possible to use works from public sources eg. national and provincial collections, of deceased artists. If for any reason, any artist disapproves of anything written about them or their work the artist is encouraged to request withdrawal of the content.