Hall’s art social commentary or glistening visual delights
By Liz Wylie - Kelowna Capital News
Published: November 23, 2010 6:00 PM
Whether you are flying out from Kelowna this winter or picking up in-bound visitors at the Kelowna International Airport, be sure to stop by the departures area to see the two large paintings by local artist John Hall installed on the Kelowna Art Gallery’s art wall.
Titled Sweetness and Light, the six-month-long installation will definitely make viewers smile. The left-hand work (see photos), Ka-pow! Is a depiction of a pile of glazed doughnuts, complete with coloured sprinkles.
The work to the right is Zing! and is a huge-scale rendering of candies—gummies, coloured licorice sticks and a scattering of licorice allsorts.
Painted in brilliant, lurid colours, these two works are bound to get people thinking about snacks, as they head to get through the security area before their flights. But is there something deeper to these works, other than their visual delights and gustatory associations?
John Hall decided early on in his painting career to focus on realism. Having graduated from the Alberta College of Art (now ACAD) in 1965, and then having spent a year in Mexico at the Instituto Allende in San Miguel de Allende, Hall began a professional career as an artist in the late 1960s, based in Calgary. He was impressed by huge abstract colour-field painting of the day, as well as Pop Art, which was the other leading movement in visual art of the time.
But realism, then just emerging as another approach for artists under the monikers of New Realism, Magic Realism or Hyper Realism, held the most appeal for him.
What was it in his personality that was drawn to this painstaking method of reproducing observed reality? It was partially related to the notion that realism is more connected to everyday life than abstract art, for example.
But Hall did not pursue a socially oriented brand of realism for very long. His “street” paintings gave way to arranged still lifes beginning in the 1970s. It is this genre that has continued to stimulate and give pleasure to Hall up until the present moment. At times his still-lifes have become portraits of individuals, for which his sitters would lend the artist objects that were meaningful to them for him to arrange and paint.
Hall quickly gained a national reputation and curatorial and critical following for these works, especially after his 1979 solo show organized by the National Gallery of Canada that went on a cross-Canada tour.
Hall left Calgary when he retired from teaching art at the University of Calgary in 1999, moving to Kelowna, where he now lives and works.
The two paintings currently at the airport are from the artist’s Sweetness and Light series of yummy treat foods, which is his latest group of paintings, and is on-going.
Is Hall making a comment about obesity or bad eating habits in this work? I don’t think so—he is not motivated or inspired to paint with a direct message such as either of those. So what is it about depicting the real world that is inspiring to Hall as an artist? Ultimately, I think, it comes down to one’s connection with life, and where that occurs for each individual. For Hall, the reflection of light from the glaze of a doughnut is as exciting as a political rally would be to a labour organizer, or a sporting event to an athlete. Hall has found his niche and taken up his position in the spectrum of art practice—much to our great benefit and enjoyment.
John Hall’s paintings at the Kelowna International Airport will be on view until May 9.
