Last year I remember seeing this somewhere but I was too late to participate. I decided to not let that happen again. And so it will be that I am contributing 3 small acrylic tiles to this initiative this year.
I have several months to create these tiles and all three have a different colour scheme. I am very curious to see how this works. One actually enters the final paintings in a digital format, and the mural will be created digitally and then printed and go on display. Interesting approach! It means I get to keep my contributing paintings… I actually have no idea where in Canada the mural will be located, but we will see. It felt nice to me to be part of a national community project. You can read more about it here:
As photographer as well as in my role as a painter, I have always had the experience that artworks can play an important rol in society as a whole. That may sound a bit pompous, but I can tell you that have done it many times before with my photography. And it is exactly what these types of creative expressions can be in a community: it can give joy and hope, but it can also be use as a vehicle for social protest.
My protest painting…
When we lived in the Greater Toronto Area a few years ago, I fell in love with one very particular old tree in an section of our city where a new development was going to be started soon. ‘My’ tree was in the middle of such an area. And I could see it coming: this tree, that, if it could talk, could tell so many stories about life as it was in the past, would soon be in the way of new construction…. Even though I understand that there is a shortage of houses, I hated the idea of the tree falling victim to the umpteenth suburban housing development! And although I am not primarily a landscape painter, I decided to paint this tree in its beautiful rural environment and and make it a piece of protest-art. I had been invited to a plein-air art show at the time, and I was told that the mayor of our city had plans to come. So I added some things to the painting that expressed my feelings and placed the project on a prominent place in my exhibition corner. It was a pretty busy show, so I am not sure that the mayor actually visited, but if he did, I hope he saw it and understood my message!
Below is what I had created. I still have the piece, but of course it is no longer relevant in that shape because we now live in another part of Ontario. If you are interested in seeing it, come and visit my studio during the upcoming Studio Tour on Saturday 27 or Sunday 28 September. Doors will be open between 10 and 5pm. For more information and an overview of all of the other artists that participate, go to this website:
These were my thoughts, on a mini canvas in the house style of that particular area…
For those who are interested in the fate of the tree: When I was in the area a couple of weeks ago it was still standing. It is barely visible in the field next to a new 3 lane thoroughfare and I doubt it still has a lot of life in it. Below is a mini canvas of the tree, after a big rainstorm flooded the field, creating a nice reflection…
