Drifting Down Big River
2007
Acrylic on canvas, 48 x 36 in
Mile 2157 2012, Acrylic on Canvas 40 x 40 in
Painting on the left:
Ere The Winter Storms Begin
2011
Acrylic on canvas, 48 x 48 in
Painting on the right:
Exit Off Highway 1
2012
Acrylic on canvas, 48 x 48 in
I saw these paintings scattered around in the lobby of an office building in Mississauga, and took photographs of them, since I couldn't find the painter's signature at the bottom of the canvasses nor any other information in the lobby (and the receptionist was no help) so that I could do a google image search later on.
And they were pretty easy to identify. They are by Christine Proctor, who:
...changed her career focus in 1997 from the corporate world to a full time commitment to painting. She is a graduate from York University’s Creative Arts program and has studied with Harold Klunder, Peter Kolisnyk, Brian Atyeo, John Leonard, David Hannan, and Steve Rose at the Neilson Park Creative Centre, Bridgewater Artist Retreat and at the Haliburton School of Fine Arts. She has participated in the "Artist in Residence Programme" with the Halton Region Conservation Authority at Crawford Lake, Halton, Ontario. Christine was accepted as a member to the Ontario Society of Artists in 2012.Here are the her teachers.
[...]
She is currently represented by Tracey Capes Fine Art, PI Fine Art and A.G.O. Art Rental & Sales in Toronto. [Source: Christine Proctor]
The Painters:
Harold Klunder
Sun And Moon IV
Harold Klunder
Canadian
2008-2009
Oil on linen, 114 x 78 in
Peter Kolisnyk
PGround Outline
Peter Kolisnyk
Canadian
Date made: 1978
Materials: steel and white lacquer
Measurements: 84 x 168 x 4 in
Collection: Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario
Brian Atyeo
Pastoral Autumn
Brian Atyeo
Canadian
Acrylic on Canvas
40 x 60 in
I can find no date for this painting, but Atyeo was exhibiting his work by 1980, so he is a contemporary Canadian painter.
Steve Rose
Figure 17
Steve Rose
Canadian
Mixed media on paper
30 x 22 in
Again, I can find no date for this painting, but Rose finished his art studies in 1999, so he is a contemporary Canadian painter.
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The critic John Leonard:
The Columbia Journalism Review called Leonard "our primary progressive, catholic [small "c"] literary critic."[10] Stylistically, he was, as CJR dubbed him, an "enthusiast,” known for his wit and wordplay, his liberal use of the semicolon and his impassioned examinations of authors and their works. He wrote definitive career essays on the work of writers ranging from Thomas Pynchon and Joan Didion to Eduardo Galeano, Salman Rushdie, Don DeLillo, Mary Gordon, John Cheever, Toni Morrison and Richard Powers.[Source: Wikipedia]------------------------------
The Marine Cinematographer David Hannan:
[David Hannan's] cinematography is featured in some of the world's most successful natural history feature films, television programs and series. These include the BBC's 'The Blue Planet', National Geographic 'The Shape of Life' and 'Great Migrations' series and David Suzuki's 'The Nature of Things'. [Source: Plankton]These are her teachers! Except for Brian Ateyo, who is really a second rate off-shoot of the Canadian Group of Seven (all Canadians put influences of the Group of Seven somewhere in their portfolio, so Proctor isn't doing anything unusual), and Hannan, which shows her "ecclectic" choices, it is clear where her careful method of primitive style came from, and how it was supported through the cultural critics of John Leonard.
Proctor describes her work thus:
I am a painter of abstract landscapes. My subjects are both conceived in my mind and connected to memories of places I have experienced. I translate images into simple shapes and bands of colour, eliminating details normally visible in nature. By doing this I hope to encourage viewers to fill in the details with their own mental imagery, and the atmosphere of their individual place. [More here]On the first page of her website, she writes:
I paint abstract landscapes, simplifying visual reality into fields of rich pure colour, transforming nature into a mysterious place for you, the viewer, to contemplate awhile. I invite you to fill in the details with your own individual experience: where the imagery, mood, and atmosphere of your personal place interacts with the colour and form of the artwork.This has been a clever cop-out of modern and modernist artists: to "encourage viewers to fill in the details with their own mental imagery..."
These badly constructed, poorly drawn, shabbily painted canvasses are what ordinary people, business centers and anyone who may have the money to foot that bill, are being duped into buying. Otherwise, they are deficient in "mental imagery" and have no "atmosphere of their individual place."
Proctor knows. She came from a business background. She knows how prestigious it is to pin up paintings of "artists" in lobbies. And how much money corporations are willing to pay to have art in their lobbies. And in fact, Morguard is doing just that with her work.
Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat