Grant Boland: New Paintings

Winchester Gallery
Victoria BC – Nov 29–Dec 24, 2007

Well-known Newfoundland artist Grant Boland is nationally recognized for his impeccable technique and elegant style in figure studies and still life renderings.

He employs the kind of realism that brought Maritime artists Christopher Pratt, Mary Pratt and Alex Colville to international fame. Drawing on the visual vocabulary of American painters Andrew Wyeth and Edward Hopper, the “Atlantic realist” painters became known for their smooth surfaces and quiet graphic content. Dry brush, watercolour or egg tempera are frequently employed in small-scale works.

Boland works with oil on panel and drawing media to create remarkably luminous imagery. In his second solo exhibit of magic realist paintings at Victoria’s Winchester Galleries, he applies oblique perspectives and Baroque elements such as diagonals and asymmetry to enhance the simple compositions. Like his contemporaries, he focuses on the play of light and shadow, the glowing and reflective surfaces and fine details like water drops and crinkled paper folds.

Boland was born in St. Mary’s Bay and studied art at the Sir Wilfred Grenfell College, Memorial University of Newfoundland in Corner Brook. In 1994 he moved to St. John's where he continues to live and work. Mia Johnson

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Mia Johnson