30-piece survey of world cities wins favour at Jasper Art Gallery

“Cities of Colour” was conceptualized and painted primarily in the cafés of Jasper over a six week period in reaction to dozens of privileged friends escaping the drab chill of the Rockies to vacation in foreign parts. On one level the series satirically laments the fact that the majority of travellers these days are people with middle brow tastes. On another, it celebrates and honours the character and features of their destination cities from monumental to miniature and with drifting moods from bedazzlement to bewilderment, the spectre of urban sprawl, darkness, light, tranquility and trauma.

Interpretive in nature, Cities of Colour invokes experiential glimpses into the spirit, colours and energy of these places and at times walks a razors edge between utopian grandeur and dystopian chaos.

The 30-piece watercolour/gouache survey was first enjoyed by many when it premiered at Jasper’s Andromeda Coffee in May 2024 in conjunction with a phantom culinary arts “festival” that never seemed to get off the ground.

Influenced loosely by the monotonous grid art of American contemporary artist Stanley Whitney, historic artists such as Edvard Munch, William Turner and Gustav Klimt also shuffle through luminous vignettes like Paranoid Oslo, Artists’ London and Vienna. The music of the esoteric English band, Piano Magic, wafts through cracked glass in Berlin and DH Lawrence makes a cameo appearance writing in his native city of Nottingham while a lone candle weeps miserably. In its inception phase, I gave Cities of Colour an alternate name, The City Within, as it can only be the  invention of an armchair traveller aggrieved by the aimless trampling of the world’s capitals by the hoi polloi.

Currently, Cities of Colour can be viewed at the Jasper Art Gallery graced by a community-based project in the form of a 12-panel “reveal”. Friends and members of the public came together on opening night to paint and assemble a grid-like scene of Jasper giving the town that winter weary locals are so eager to escape the distinction of City of Colour.

Each 8 x 10” matted vignette is priced at $75.00

Leap and the net will appear

In her timeless book on creative process, The Artist's Way, the author Julia Cameron reminds us of the inherent danger of artists taking creative "leaps". Rather, authentic creativity has more to do with countless thousands of small steps that move you safely from your present position into a life changing creative adventure.

On the eve of my show, Cities of Colour at Andromeda Coffee & SnowDome Coffee Bar I take solace in knowing I have cultivated a process that brings me joy, and that when I take that leap the net will appear.

Bless

Cities of Colour - Vignettes About Process & Passion

The interplay of line and colour in Cities of Colour brings lifes to Jasper's 'Taste of Spring', an exciting new art and culinary happening. Deagle's bright palette and adept brushwork invite experiential glimpses into the sights, sounds, colours and flavours of each international city symbolized in this 30 piece abstract show of small to medium sized watercolours.

Show opens Friday, May 3rd (6:30 - 9:00 pm) at Andromeda Coffee and runs until Sunday, May 12 during regular café hours. Co-sponsored by the Jasper Artists Guild in partnership with Tourism Jasper and UPLift Jasper Mural Festival, all works in Cities of Colour are for sale.

On opening night, Andromeda’s baristas will be behind the bar to transport your taste buds to a mountain town paradise of seasonal mocktails, cocktails and tantalizing confections. Ukulele / vocals by the talented Christine Marcoux! Admission is free.

The Power of Myth

I recently had the unexpected privilege of working alongside an emerging Jasper mural artist, Keenan Sillence, on a large-scale, outdoor piece for Jasper’s inaugural and wildly successful UpLift Mural Festival. Rightfully declared a “homegrown hero” by festival directors, Keenan was presented with the difficult challenge of painting a multi-angled loading dock on a multitude of industrial surfaces.

Mythological Traditions

The mural is in a style called ukiyo-e, which is like a painting done on a woodblock also known as a woodblock print. The narrative is based on an avant-garde Japanese anime TV series called Mononoke that is set in feudal Japan.

At the time I offered Keenan Sillence my assistance, I happened to be re-reading Joseph Campbell’s Power of Myth. As I worked on the mural, I entered an extraordinary collective memory involving primordial societies painting hieroglyphs of animals and spiritual beings on the walls of caves.

The symbols of mythology and legend are all around us, embedded in the fabric of our daily lives, and mural art can be a good, fairly accessible portal for recognizing and understanding their meanings.

Assisting a local mural artist in the execution of this glittering wall piece offered a provocative glimpse into the ancient world of feudal societies and the need for ecological protection.

NEW: "Blue Monday" - Jasper's streets are a canvas for uneasy pictorial narratives

A solitary girl lost in thought enters a framed picture space - a drab townscape bathed in spectacular yet cheerless mid-winter light. Vehicles spew diesel as they navigate the frozen streets at a snail’s pace and the air is rife with the smell of road salt and food smells borne on steaming kitchen vapours. Blue Monday is not merely a streetscape; It is a pictorial narrative that is meant to be confronted with a particular sense of uncomfortable intimacy, taking for granted the presence of a viewer who agrees to a dialogue in which the words are put forward by the lone subject, but in which the meaning must be invented by the viewer.

A Brush with Local History

Adding to my summer collection at Elk Village Restaurant at Jasper House Bungalows 4.5 km south of Jasper on the scenic Icefields Parkway. Established in 1956, on a picturesque property overlooking the Athabasca River, the original 28 units were built by Austrian John Woldrich with the help of several young Italian immigrants, one of whom, John Forabsco Sr., is undeniably a Jasper legend. I am grateful to the staff and management of Elk Village to be able to show in their dining room, an official external display venue of the Jasper Artists Guild .

New piece nearing completion

As May turns into winter, I've been painting my way towards completion of this somewhat large (30 x 36 inch) oil of Mt. Cinquefoil and Talbot Lake in the east environs of Jasper National Park; Just a few finishing touches ahead and then the drying, varnishing and framing process begins. The piece is based on a smaller, framed study that is currently hanging in splendid isolation at the indefinitely closed Jasper Art Gallery until Covid-19 restrictions are lifted. Preliminary inquiries welcome!

What's Love Got To Do With It?

A highlight of the Jasper Art Gallery's eventual relaunch strategy is "Love in the Time of COVID" a special exhibition of local art aimed at exploring what love's got do with it - Covid-19 that is. The show will encompass a number of issues from seeing how relationships have evolved in the pandemic to (re)learning how to appreciate the smaller things and much in between. Above all, "Love in the Time of Covid" will encourage openness and sharing of current struggles through art.

Opening later in May 2021, the show will hang in real-time within our presently closed gallery and can be viewed by private appointment or more excitingly, in the form of a virtual gallery tour on JAG's various social media channels.

I am happy to preview a custom framed (11 x 14 inch), mixed-media submission for the upcoming exhibition called "Embrace". Incorporating a linear, erotic motif by early twentieth century Fauvist master, Henri Matisse; this playful piece is bordered with intuitive ink markings and expressive vignettes. Think of "Embrace" as an ode to life, joy and physical abandonment in the time of Covid.

Custom produced, archival framing package a hit with collectors

I'm nothing short of delighted with the outcome of this carefully researched, custom framing solution for my oils. The beveled, white cotton liners come from Quebec and the accompanying maple frames are custom milled in Alberta. Frames are hand tipped locally using professional quality, water-based wood stain and the final package is assembled right here in Jasper at Artists Own custom frame shop:

https://www.facebook.com/artistsowninjasper/

Lastly, black paper backings and a braced wiring system add flair and safety to the reverse side (verso) of each painting. The pricing structure of my framed oils will necessarily increase, but collectors can expect a museum quality product reflecting colour choices and materials that are singular to my work. My thanks go to Marianne Garrah at Artists Own for her expertise in helping to make this exciting project possible!

Newly designed, locally produced framing package adds flair and archival stability to my oils. Pictured here: Woodland Path, Buffalo Prairie, Jasper - Oil on canvas (image size, 12 x 16 inches). Photo supplied by collector.

Chinese brush paintings; A vision of calm on the far edge of chaos

My enrolment in the Vancouver Art Gallery’s ‘Art At Home’ online tutorial for Chinese brush painting in early December was sparked by my curiosity about the Chinese painter, Lui Shou-Kwan, and the seminal, Hong Kong-based New Ink Movement he led in the sixties. The course was generally guided by this influential artist's disciplines and discoveries. I enjoyed the tutorial at the time, but didn’t see myself eventually dedicating a corner of my studio to a back-burner interest in brush painting, let alone tracking down a custom Chinese seal for signing my improvisational ink works in Cantonese!

I guess my inquisitive foray into the mystic writings of fourth century B.C. philosopher, Chuang Tsu at the ripe age of fifteen, combined with the incidental purchase of a Chinese ink stick at a charmingly odd shop called The Wreckage in Ucluelet, BC on Canada’s west coast, gave rise to my earliest kinship with calligraphy and brush art. In decades to come I would dabble somewhat casually in these evocative mediums.

In the introduction to Chuang Tsu’s Inner Chapters, that part of his work that scholars acknowledge were definitely written by him, it is stated, “Chuang Tsu transcended the whang chen, the illusory dust of this world thus anticipating Zen Buddhism and laying the metaphysical foundation for a state of emptiness or ego transcendence.” It is this exact form of transcendence that seems to kick in each time I lift the loaded brush from the ink well. Then! There is no end of depth to the imagery and fantasy that flows as the brush is set to paper even though my compositions at this stage are pretty elemental; bamboo shoots and leaves that float convincingly over impressionistic mountain and waterfall forms derived from wet-on-wet technique for priming the paper.

The purity and ease of the medium reflect an organic stillness where I can find ideas and strength for future paintings, and point poetically to a vision of calm on the far edge of chaos.

Examples in the form of small originals and cards will soon be available at the Jasper Art Gallery.

A portion of my kit for Chinese brush art; The ornamental jars contain cinnabar red ink paste derived from plants. The stamp bearing my signature in Cantonese is pictured in the upper left alongside two examples of my recent brush paintings. A video that goes into some detail on the life of Lui Shou-Kwan is copied below.

Morning Pages; An excerpt

Explanations are an escape from feeling. Assertions distract us from being in the midst of the present experience, from moving step by step onto new ground. The drama that is on the surface of the painting truly does not matter. What matters is what we are underneath that surface, and this can only be experienced, not explained.

Current! Featured Artist exhibit at the Jasper Art Gallery

It is a great honour to be participating as Feature Artist at the Jasper Art Gallery for the month of July 2019. If you are in the vicinity be sure to drop by for a look at my three acrylic/mixed-media studio abstractions. You may find them looking back at you!

JAG’s Featured Artist series give all members of the Jasper Artists Guild the opportunity to display a collective body of art for a period of one month. I invite you to follow their Facebook page to stay up to date on Featured Artist, exhibits and events. www.facebook.com/JasperArtistsGuild/

Studio Abstractions / Artist Statement

These three paintings were created during the winter of 2018-19 and are the continuation of an ongoing search that has brought me from abstraction to figuration, landscape and back again.

I function on an intuitive basis when I produce these, starting with the application of transparent washes and adding successively opaque paint and collage layers as the painting develops. Mistakes occur frequently however I strive to accept them as a stimulus for further investigation.

Each canvas is a means of solving complex, compositional problems imposed by the creative thrust when I begin each one.

As I add narrative collage elements, these works take on a quality of “humanized abstraction” that I find at once compelling and therapeutic.

Mapping the maze of life's unusual juxtapositions

My foray into the abstract realm continues with this piece in progress with the working title, “Nocturnal Heart”. In these latest works I am seeing the world not as a continuum but a series of odd juxtapositions. There are no prescribed outcomes; They are meant to hold the autobiographical and the cerebral in an uneasy balance. I am hoping to feature the finished painting at the #JasperArtGallerywhich is slated for a curatorial revamp in the near future. #canadianart #canadianabstractart#bendingnewcorners #theartistsway — at Jasper Artists Guild.

Just finished co-curating OneLine, a solo show for my enormously talented friend Satoko Naito (Rico) at the Jasper Art Gallery. Using accordion-style blank books, Rico deftly captures everyday scenes in pen and ink using one contiguous line. The books are then meticulously packaged in handpainted boxes. We suspended some of these from the ceiling structure at the Jasper Art Gallery and lined the perimeter walls with framed prints. Slick vinyl graphics and extended labels complete the installation. A young, enthusiastic crowd of 140 many of whom were captured in the displayed artwork thronged the gallery on opening night. The show continues until May 11.

Renowned land-based artist to speak at opening night of the Alberta Public Art Network Summit

Looking forward to the arrival of Peter von Tiesenhausen when he comes to town for the opening night of the Alberta Public Art Network conference on April 18th. Peter is a controversial, multi-media artist whose practice has grown from landscape painting to installation, sculpture, performance and beyond. His work often deals with the ideas of time, life, voyage, death, spirit, nature and humanity. There is a strong pursuit of sustainability often evident in the work and an attempt to understand time and substance from a variety of perspectives.
 

Residual snow bring new colours, textures to the palette

It is rare to expose a work in progress, however, since the intent of this blog is largely to journalize my day to day discoveries as a visual artist, I am bravely sharing today's exploratory study. Like my inspiring friend, the artist Jason Bartziokas, I frequently turn my back on the imposing rock and ice viewscapes Jasper is known for and find rich satisfaction in painting intimate forest settings similar to this. Right now, the gradual transition from winter to spring is bringing new values to my palette.  Snow shadows are softening and my paintings in general are losing their seasonal edge. I have opted for a crudely gessoed, masonite surface and applied base painting layers using bristle brushes and a fairly aggressive scumbling technique. In coming days I will gradually refine and isolate these underlying, darker layers before selectively applying gradient hues of white and eventually some skeletal branches. My intent is to keep the overall approach as textural as possible to capture a moment in time when the granular, retreating snows of winter yield to the coming of spring.

Alberta Public Art Network (APAN) Summit 2017 comes to Jasper!

Looking forward to attending the Alberta Public Art Network (APAN) 2017 Summit, April 18-20 right here in my hometown of Jasper. APAN supports and mentors Alberta public artists and administrators. It also creates awareness of Alberta public art projects and opportunities. This conference will feature elements of theatre, music, local cuisine, guest speakers, panels and pop-ups.