July 8, 9 & 10 I will be show­ing pieces from the Cityscapes Col­lec­tion at the 55th Anniver­sary Toron­to Out­door Art Exhi­bi­tion. It will be three days out in the ele­ments talk­ing to hun­dreds of peo­ple. Come see me at Booth 183.

Ear­ly in 2016 I trav­elled to Man­as­sas Vir­ginia to take part in ilia Anossov’s mas­ter class fres­co work­shop. Iona Bel­cea had been com­mis­sioned to fres­co the altar wall of a new­ly built chapel and ilia was the fres­co con­sul­tant. The four day course was enlivened by a spec­tac­u­lar bliz­zard that had us snowed in. Present­ly I an work­ing on an ambi­tious plan for my own large scale fres­co. It will be a huge amount of work, incred­i­bly heavy, hard to trans­port and frag­ile. Why? You might ask.

I have also been work­ing on a series of geo­met­ric abstrac­tions paint­ed with stain on raw wood pan­els. These pieces were indi­rect­ly inspired by my study of the Sis­tine Chapel. While I have of late been hard pressed for time to pur­sue it, the poten­tial of this explo­ration feels vast and exciting.

24″ x 36″, acrylic on canvas

The fifth of May finds me moved in to Gallery A at the Robert McLaugh­lin Gallery in Oshawa. The Gallery is show­ing the “Drip Show”, fea­tur­ing the life and times of Jack­son Pollock.

I will attempt to explain the paint­ings at the artist talk/official open­ing 1–3pm Sat. May 9th.

For direc­tions to the gallery see their web­site or phone 905–576-3000.

This is a remount of the show pre­sent­ed at the Glad­stone in 2013 but now in a larg­er space and fea­tur­ing sev­er­al pre­vi­ous­ly unex­hib­it­ed or new pieces and the open­ing day artist talk. 

All are welcome.

Mean­while, I con­tin­ue to pur­sue my fres­co stud­ies in a series I’m call­ing “Tak­ing Lessons from Mike”. While learn­ing to paint very quick­ly on wet plas­ter, I have pro­duced a series of close ups from the Sis­tine Chapel; sev­er­al Eves, Adam, God, sev­er­al mes­sen­gers of doom, the anguished, a side excur­sion to vis­it Car­avag­gio for John the Bap­tist’s head and Raphael for Pope Julius and the Vir­gin and Child. I have also worked to cre­ate a por­trait of Michelan­ge­lo which proves a chal­lenge as I have yet to find real­ly reli­able source from which to work.

Along with thank­ing Michelan­ge­lo. I would like to acknowl­edge ILia Annosov and the Fres­co School for the five CD set of fres­co paint­ing instruc­tion. they are very infor­ma­tive and soothing.Special thanks to Ben and The Lime Plas­ter Com­pa­ny for the fiv­er of love­ly put­ty. Find­ing Ben marked the cul­mi­na­tion of a lengthy and expen­sive search for hi-cal­ci­um lime. 

What exact­ly I intend to do with this fres­co­ing skill remains a ques­tion. Prac­ti­cal­ly, it has improved my plas­ter­ing tech­nique but wall paint­ing as a per­ma­nent dis­play seems to have lit­tle place in a world of con­stant change and per­son­al­ized decor. My present clien­tele is unlike­ly to sup­port the expense of fres­coed walls.

For those of you who missed last year’s ice bound show of the Cityscapes, I will be show­ing them again at Hedgerow Far­m’s “Peony Daze” this com­ing June. I will also be per­form­ing a set of orig­i­nal songs much like I did for the Wave Series at the Wych­wood Gallery. Con­tact me through the web­site for fur­ther information.

I will be show­ing work at Space Invaders in Oshawa, Ontario from Sep­tem­ber 19th to 27th 2014.

I will also be a guest artist at Ann Cum­mings Ceram­ic Stu­dio dur­ing the Uxbridge Stu­dio Tour on the 19th and 20th of September. 

Thank you all for com­ing and mak­ing the show a suc­cess. Here are some pic­tures of the installation.

Instal­la­tion Shots: Pic­ture by Anne Collins

Pho­to by Steven Frank