When I have the time between playdates and pizza lunches, I like to take a moment to be in a calm place to clear my head and to be inspired. I go to art galleries and museums for this. It’s difficult to explain but it’s a rejuvenation of sorts. As an artist, I’m always curious as to how other artists go through their creative processes. 
The Art Gallery of Ontario’s (AGO) newest exhibition celebrates the life of Canadian artist Jack Chambers. It offers a fantastic opportunity to go through the creative journey with him in the most intimate way. Delving into the understanding of how an artist thinks is a gift itself.
Jack Chambers was a diverse artist from photography to paintings to film. I was told by traditional artists that an artist should stick to one style – one medium and own it. But I’ve always personally thought this advice didn’t accurately depict me as a person. I’m multi-facetted and always evolving. Chambers was an artist who showed a great reflection of life in its ever changing ways..applying his work in various forms.
There were many sides to Chambers. He was a passionate defender of artists’ rights, an experimental filmmaker with an international reputation, and a painter who continually reinvented his language of expression. Chambers initially created dreamlike surrealist paintings during an eight year stay in Spain. Back home in London, Ontario, he developed a strikingly realistic style he called Perceptual Realism. He focused his camera on his family, his home or on favourite places around the city, and then painstakingly recreated the photographs in paint.
About the Exhibition:
Jack Chambers: Light, Spirit, Time, Place and LIfe is the first large survey exhibition on Chambers in over 20 years, and features more than 100 works in all media (40 paintings, 58 drawings, 4 prints, 5 films and archives). The works are presented within four themes the represent common threads in Chambers’ career and highlight the diversity of this great Canadian artist.
An accompanying book and catalogue edited by Dennis Reid has been published for the exhibition. Jack Chambers: Light, Spirit, Time, Place and LIfe, is co-published by Goose Lane Editions and the AGO. Available at shopAGO for $45.00.
The Jack Chambers Exhibition is on view at the AGO November 26, 2011 to May 13, 2012.
The Art Gallery of Ontario is located at 317 Dundas Street West, Toronto, Ontario.
Visit The Art Gallery of Ontario for details on this exhibition and more including children and family workshops in the new Weston Family Learning Centre.
