Greg Edmonson (artist)

Last updated

Greg Edmonson (born 1960, Calgary, Alberta) is a Canadian painter. He is primarily known for his paintings of fractured landscape and portrait paintings, and his Soviet Pangaea series of paintings which featured large scale portraits of faces from history. He received his master's degree in fine art from the University of Alberta.

Contents

Soviet Pangaea (1993)

"Neutral Ground Exhibition" (1993) NeutralGround1993.jpg
"Neutral Ground Exhibition" (1993)

Pangaea is a hypothetical landmass that existed when all continents were joined about 200-300 million years ago before breaking up. "In forming the Soviet Union, many borders were disregarded in an attempt to merge cultural identities and alter personal bonds. In this body of work, Edmonson focuses attention on boundaries that have come together and have been divided and subdivided and on the tentative foundation on which political, social and religious beliefs are based". [1] "Soviet Pangaea serves as a metaphor for all political and natural unions. Through this body of work, Edmonson points to the certainty of an everchanging world where history is represented as evolution and evolution results in the individuality of each culture and person." [1]

Fractured paintings (1996)

"Indefinite Divisibility", 63x51" (1996) Indefinite Divisibility 1996.jpg
"Indefinite Divisibility", 63x51" (1996)

"The images are based on old photographs from Russia which Edmonson uses as raw material - selecting fragments and snippets of characteristics from different individuals, the common people, reinterpreting and creating new faces that are amalgamations of several..." [2] Edmonson's use of shadows metaphorically suggests the fragmentary nature of history and memory - parts hidden from view, others slowly emerging from which we can begin to formulate an understanding of the whole. In a 1994 artist's statement, Edmonson commented that an earlier interest in tar pits in Alberta led to his archeological interpretation of memory: "where amongst the dark matter of tar have been found the remnants of life forms, which act as a kind of physical symbol of how time displaces history and memory." [2]

Collections

His paintings are seen today in collections including those of Microsoft, the Toronto-Dominion Bank, the Canada Council Art Bank, the Art Gallery of Alberta, the Glenbow Museum, the University of Lethbridge Art Gallery, the Nickle Galleries, the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, the Alberta Art Foundation, the Carleton University Art Gallery, the Department of External Affairs(Canada), and the Albright College Museum.

Related Research Articles

Edward W. (Ted) Godwin, L.L. D was the youngest member of the Regina Five, a group of five artists all based in Regina, Saskatchewan in 1961 when the group got its name from a show held by the National Gallery of Canada. Godwin is also known for his so-called Tartan paintings of the late 1960s and 1970s.

Chris Cran is a Canadian visual artist, based in Calgary, Alberta.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roloff Beny</span> Canadian photographer

Roloff Beny (1924–1984) was a Canadian photographer who spent the better part of his life in Rome and on his photographic travels throughout the world. Born Wilfred Roy Beny in Medicine Hat, Alberta, he later took as his first name Roloff, his mother's maiden name.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alfred Young Man</span> American Cree artist (born 1948)

Alfred Young Man, Ph.D. or Kiyugimah is a Cree artist, writer, educator, and an enrolled member of the Chippewa-Cree tribe located on the Rocky Boy Indian Reservation, Montana, US. His Montana birth certificate lists him as being 13/16th Cree by blood-quantum, his full sister, Shirley, is listed as 16/16ths. He is a former Department Head (2007–2010) of Indian Fine Arts at the First Nations University of Canada in Regina, Saskatchewan and former Chair (1999–2007) of Native American Studies, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada. He is Professor Emeritus at the University of Lethbridge and University of Regina.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Illingworth Kerr</span> Canadian painter, illustrator and writer

Illingworth "Buck" Kerr was a Canadian painter, illustrator and writer. He is best known for his landscape paintings of the Saskatchewan and Alberta prairies and foothills.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Luke Lindoe</span> Canadian artist (1913–2000)

Luke Orton Lindoe was a Canadian potter, painter, sculptor, and businessman who did most of his work in Alberta, Canada. For long periods he was based in Medicine Hat. He had many different jobs, from mineral prospecting, coal mining, and teaching art, to producing potting clay and manufacturing ceramic products such as ashtrays. He also had many commissions for stone or concrete murals on public buildings. During his lifetime he gained a high reputation as a mentor of ceramic artists and for his own ceramics, oil paintings, and sculptures.

Peter Krausz is a Romanian-born Canadian artist. Throughout his career, he worked within the fields of painting, drawing, installation, and photography and, since 1970, exhibited in museums and galleries across Canada, the United States, and Europe. He is best known for large-scale landscape paintings of the Mediterranean.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Susan G. Scott</span> Canadian artist

Susan G. Scott is a Canadian artist known for both contemporary figurative painting and, more recently, her landscapes. Her work is found in national and international public collections including the Canada Council for the Arts, Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Collection du Fonds régional d'art contemporain d’Île-de-France in Paris, Canada - Israel Cultural Foundation in Jerusalem and Houston Baptist University in Texas. She was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts (RCA) in 2013.

Renée Van Halm is a Canadian contemporary visual artist born in Haarlemmermeer, the Netherlands (1949) and immigrated to Canada in 1953.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Annora Brown</span> Canadian artist (1899–1987)

Mary Annora Brown L.L. D. (1899–1987), known as Annora Brown, was a Canadian visual artist whose work encompassed painting and graphic design. She was best known for her depictions of natural landscapes, wildflowers, and First Nations communities in Canada. Much of her work thematically explored Albertan identity, though she remained relatively obscure in discussions of Canadian art.

Nancy Tousley is a senior art critic, journalist, art writer and independent curator whose practice has included writing for a major daily newspaper, art magazines, and exhibition catalogues.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Helen Stadelbauer</span> Canadian painter

Helen Stadelbauer was a Canadian painter and educator known for her establishment of the Art Department at the University of Calgary.

Jeff Thomas is an Onondaga Nation photographer, curator, and cultural theorist who works and lives in Ottawa, Ontario.

Linda Craddock is a Canadian visual artist living in Calgary, Alberta. Her work has been featured in exhibitions since 1973.

Kim Dorland is a contemporary Canadian painter based in Toronto. He is best known for his thickly-painted, fluorescent-imbued landscapes and super-thick portraiture and his use of multiple painting mediums per canvas.

Dulcie Foo Fat is a British-born Canadian landscape painter, based in Calgary, Alberta.

Joice M. Hall is a Canadian artist from Alberta, now based in British Columbia. She is known primarily as a landscape painter of large panoramas.

Ronald Benjamin Moppett is a Canadian painter. He is known primarily for abstract paintings and for works in which he combines paint and collage, along with non-traditional materials. Moppett is based in Calgary, Alberta.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Hall (Canadian artist)</span> Canadian modernist painter from Alberta (born 1943)

John Hall is a Canadian modernist painter from Alberta, known for his highly realistic painting style.

David Garneau is a Métis artist whose practice includes painting, curating, and critical writing.

References

  1. 1 2 Franklyn Heisler, "Greg Edmonson:Soviet Pangaea, Muttart Art Gallery Newsletter, Vol. 5, Issue 2, pg.5 March/April 1993.
  2. 1 2 Burns,K.:"Greg Edmonson:The Persistence of Memory", Medicine Hat Museum and Art Gallery catalogue, pg.2,December 16, 2000.

Further reading