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May 18,2008 - May 25,2008 |
A writing life captured on canvas
McMichael Gallery explores James Reaney’s visual works in exhibit
By Alessio Galletti
Originally Published: 2008-04-20
“If one sees the particulars of his life through his writing, one sees his emotions through his paintings.” This is how Stephen Weir, spokesperson for the McMichael Gallery, compares the writing and the paintings of James Reaney, renowned Canadian writer to whom the Kleinburg gallery is dedicating an art exhibit, “The Iconography of Imagination” featuring the prolific writer’s little-known artistic works from the ’40s to the late ’90s.
“It will be the first major exhibition ever of the artist’s visual work. Reaney, already a renowned writer, was never very interested in being acknowledged as a painter as well,” says Weir, who goes on to explain that the paintings are great works of art, and much more interesting when compared to his more famous literary production “because the art allows us see other aspects of the writer’s life, they tell us about his soul.”
His art works are characterized by the same themes found in his writings, which owe much to his rural life experience in London [Ontario].
Through the various sketches, drawings and paintings, one sees colours, shapes, and archetypes, which, as the name of the exhibition says, are iconographs of the artist’s imagination. Alongside Reaney’s works of art on display are his books, with highlighted passages to help us better comprehend the close artistic relationship between the two art forms. And by comparing his visual works to the written works, according to Weir, one can appreciate the artist in a new light.
The McMichael exhibit, which covers most of Reaney’s life, can also be seen and experienced as a biography where one can ponder the influence that the time period would have had on the works created.
“Initially he was greatly influenced by the Group of Seven,” explains Weir, “but, with the arrival of the ’60s, his paintings began to show psychedelic influences. At the end of that era, we see the return of landscapes.” For example, among the works on display we find landscapes painted at the end of the ’60s when Reaney traveled across Canada with his wife, poet Colleen Thibaudeau. These represent a true diary on the experiences of the artist.
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