David Milne meets Tom Thompson in Alfred Villeneuve at the Cube Gallery
Villeneuve Image from Mattrowntree
David Milne meets Tom Thompson in the works of Alfred G.Villeneuve now on display at Cube Gallery as part of Kitchiokima, a show of visual art featuring Native and Metis Artists tackling the subjects of leadership, betrayal, and land.
But they do more than meet. There’s chemistry. They bond and intermingle with each other. They ignite a brilliant fire of pebbled landscape and sky, evoking the Group of Seven’s Algonquin park in a frenzied whirlwind of Milnesque Where’s Waldoness. Dazzling northern pines are presented in tiny paint-by-number shapes that become increasingly clear and sharp and fresh as you move out from the canvas. The effect is humbling, just like a walk in the wilderness.
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Tom Thompson image from here. |
The successful melding of Tom Thompson’s bold and colorful expression of nature, striking Van Gogh-like skies and foliage, and pure bright sun light, with David Milne’s capacity to express changing reflected trees on water and to separate and assemble component parts in new configurations, is Villeneuve’s true genius. As he puts it "Saturated motion, in colour gives life…animated for all time." In his dazzling work we can also see the influence of American and French Impressionism, Henri Matisse’s Fauvism, and Claude Monet.
Image from the National Gallery of Canada’s Cybermuse.
The highlight of Kitchiokima is Villeneuve’s "Sunrise Ceremony." It expresses how we on earth are all constructs of the same atoms, rearranged continually, eternally. It washes over us, as do real, big, open skied, outdoor sunsets and rises. It’s magnificent.
So are the handful of small Thomson-like oil sketches that hang beside it. Thompson used custom made birch panels – about 8 ½" x 10 ½ " (21.6 cm x 26.7 cm) -that fit into a sketch boxes designed to hold several of them in addition to paint, oil, and brushes; ideal for the artist who seeks inspiration in places that can only be reached on foot or by canoe. These small pieces are a steal at $300.00.
Villeneuve paints mostly in Algonquin Provincial Park, capturing its many seasonal moods. This ‘plein aire’ painter clearly shares the Group of Seven’s urge to find the extraordinary, to treat the ordinary in extraordinary ways. His work offers a deep spiritual experience, a splendid communion with Canadian nature.
Don’t miss it.
February 23rd, 2008 at 4:12 PM
sweet – like the milne references …waldo?
ha
will send to alfred..
Don
February 25th, 2008 at 5:55 PM
Took the words right outta my mouth…Well done