Alex Cameron: Changing Weather

January 11 - March 23, 2008
Selections from the Permanent Collection
Organized by KW|AG

"When I am out in these landscapes, I can't help but paint them. We all know that this country has the last frontier of wilderness, and we observe its passing. My love of the outdoors fuels my efforts to capture in paint the essence of our land before its final disappearance." - Alex Cameron

 

Alex Cameron, View from the Point: Georgian Bay, Ontario (detail), 1989, oil on canvas. Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery, gift of Mr. Irving Zucker, 1993.

Alex Cameron can be described accurately as both a landscape and abstract painter, simultaneously. Whichever he's engaging inevitably shows evidence of the other. His vertical division of the canvas between ground and sky, staccato brushstrokes, and expressive ability to capture motion are generally consistent, regardless of style. These elements shared by both landscape and abstraction create an aesthetically unified yet diverse body of work.

This selection from the permanent collection represents Cameron's earlier landscapes, a subject explored throughout his career to the present day. Although persistent in its sublime affect, the Canadian landscape revered by artists less than one century ago as incomprehensibly expansive is now being lamented by Cameron in its struggle for survival. These sombre and tumultuous scenes of nearly barren vistas and darkened skies communicate a common message during this time of environmental crisis.

About Alex Cameron
Toronto-based Alex Cameron has exhibited extensively in Canada for more than 35 years. His work is represented in numerous public, private, and corporate collections including the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Canada Council Art Bank. Not content to have art as a singular passion in his life, Alex has traveled North America in the motorcycle racing circuit as a mechanic for champion racer, Miles Baldwin.