(Buswoman, by Evin Collis. Photo by Lorne Roberts).Walking Paintings, by Justin Waterman
Piano Nobile Gallery, Centennial Concert Hall, 515 Main St.
To Oct. 22
Street Buzz, by Evin Collis
Wayne Arthur Gallery, 186 Provencher Blvd.
To Aug. 29
So, even though this article is about two artists who happen to be a few years younger than him, let's start with Clarence Tillenius anyway, since he's practically a legend around these parts.
No, the 94-year old wildlife artist (and member of the Order of Canada) doesn't have a new show, but he was in attendance at the opening reception for someone else's show the other night.
Looking a few decades younger than his age might suggest, Tillenius was the life of the party--shaking hands, charming the young ladies, and telling stories to spellbound groups of listeners.
The show he attended was by local painter Justin Waterman, at the Concert Hall. Waterman is only in his mid-30's, but, like Tillenius, seems to keep getting younger every year.
And the exhibit amounts to what is his first major solo show, an exciting proposition for a guy who has toiled away in relative obscurity, for years, with not much reward beyond personal satisfaction.
Those who have seen Waterman's work over the last several years, though, mostly at the Label Gallery, will realize that he tirelessly re-works and re-invents his techniques, constantly growing and changing as a painter--learning on the go, basically, since this Sisler grad has almost no formal art training.
His exhibit celebrates nostalgia, family, and art in all its forms--high, low, and everything in between. There are homages to comic book art, there are portraits, landscapes, abstraction, and a series of pieces that look at performers from violinists to strippers to clowns.
And as you'd expect, the strongest works are those that are closest to the artist's heart, either in the images painted from old family photos, or the stylized portraits of himself, his wife, and their two children.
At a very different stage of his career is 18-year old Evin Collis, currently a student at the Ontario College of Art and Design, in Toronto.
Barely a year out of Grant Park high school, Collis has put together an ambitious show of 16 paintings and three sculptures.
Borrowing from the likes of American graffiti artists Jean-Michael Basquiat and Phillip Guston, without ever losing his own vioice, Collis creates a series of lively, colourful Winnipeg street scenes.
The most noteable feature, once you get past the initial aspects of colour and design, is the sympathy that Collis seems to have for his subjects.
In Buswoman, for example, one of the simpler works in the show, a thoughtful, thirty-something woman rides public transit, with only a truck, a fly, and a Portage Avenue sign, to keep her company.
A few years back, when they featured a review of Marcel Dzama's work, Canadian Art magazine asked a rhetorical question about his insight into such a wide variety of human emotions. "Isn't he too young to know this stuff?", the reviewer wondered.
And while he's no Dzama just yet, it's a question that's worth asking about Collis's work, too. His portrayals of fry cooks, street people, and sad-eyed young gangsters, show an understanding of the quirks, sufferings, and energy, of everyday Winnipeg.
Cobbled together from his imagination and from his observations, the works incorporate touches of unreality, such as his relocating of the century-old Woodbine Hotel, from its current Main Street spot, to the Corydon Village strip.
Both of these artists also have work on at other places around town right now. They're in a group show, with twenty other others, at the Label Gallery (510 Portage Ave.). Waterman is also part of another group show at cr8ery, a gallery and studio space on the corner of William and Adelaide.
So, at different points in their lives, and their careers, these two are just beginning to step into the public eye, with their first solo exhibits. If they're lucky to stick around as long as Tillenius has, it'll be worth seeing what they're up to when they're 94.
