The Still Life World of John Hall

The Still Life World of John Hall

16 Hazelton Ave Calgary, AB, Canada Saturday, April 30, 2011–Saturday, May 28, 2011

John Hall's first solo exhibition at Loch Gallery in Calgary will open Saturday April 30th and run until Saturday May 28th. Featuring a collection of works from the 1980s leading up to the artist's current series entitled "Sweetness and Light", we will see how the artist's ongoing interests in popular culture, the still-life genre, and the conventions of contemporary and pre-modernist realist painting have evolved over the past four decades. This exhibition should not be missed, especially because a number of the works in this show have remained in the artist's collection up until now. John Hall will be in attendance during the opening celebration on April 30th from 1-3pm.

About the Artist

John Hall's career began in the '60s, that explosive decade of chaos, reform, Aquarian reassessment, anarchic freedom, and blind belief that anything could be done. He aligned himself to one small creative movement that sought to make sense of the times, initially labeled new realism. Now we more often refer to realism with a prefix of hyper, photo, or extreme. This movement brought an essentially neutral objectivity to the field of cultural debris that the sixties revolution left in its wake.

As a return to full realism evolved through the 'seventies, Hall was excited by the possibilities realism offered and pleased to be able to participate in its growth. That excitement remains in place for him still, and working on paintings of piles of glazed doughnuts or liquorice candies spread on a base of tinfoil, as seen in the new Sweetness & Light series, gives the artist the same level of intense pleasure as ever.

Hall's paintings celebrate aspects of everyday, commonplace, North American life; still lifes of things to be found in the kitchen, artist studio or other work spaces frequently occupy his interest. Another significant ongoing interest of Hall's is still life portraiture, in which the subject provides objects of importance and meaning to her or himself. Hall has also found inspiration in Mexico, a favourite destination of his since the sixties, and where he had a second home through the nineties. We see this inspiration in his series of paintings of Mexican trinkets, crafts, toys, candies, and past-their-prime fruits and vegetables.

Throughout the last five decades John Hall's work has been critically acclaimed as being uniquely suited to the challenge of portraiture, roused the genre of realism, and has challenged both historic and contemporary painting conventions; while clearly reflective of his post-modern time and place, John Hall's paintings now willingly acknowledge and embrace the rich history of western realism - and bring to the table his own pioneering artistic proficiency.

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