Treasures 2009 (Art Exhibition) Anthony J. Batten, Michael Cleary, Linda Finn, John Hansen, Jane Hunter, Brent Laycock, Mary Anne Ludlam, June Montgomery, Margaret L. Squire, Rudolf Stussi. The Canadian Society of Painters in Watercolour; John B. Aird Gallery, 900 Bay Street, Toronto. Monday to Friday 10am - 6 pm; until November 20.

A recent stint of volunteering gave me a day to commune with some of the finest watercolour painting this country – indeed the world itself – has to offer. Treasures 2009 at the Aird Gallery celebrates the work of ten lifetime members of the Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour. All ten are stellar artists whose involvement with the CSPWC has significantly helped promote the love of watercolours at home and abroad.

Blurbs about the show describe these ten artists variously as "venerable" and "distinguished". Not much doubt about which category I’d prefer to be included in, but either would do. The artists’ bios list enough awards and medals combined to fill a museum of their own. Several of the artists have had works selected for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s collection at Windsor Castle.

To my way of seeing things, this show surpasses the previous one that featured CSPWC lifetime members. In that show, you couldn’t escape the impression that some of the artists didn’t submit their best work. No such suspicion this year. While all works exhibit a high degree of excellence, one of the most striking things about the show is the range of styles and themes – everything from landscapes that wouldn’t look out of place in a Victorian show to freaky creations that look like they’re fresh from Queen Street West. (A few of the works are in other media than watercolour.)

An unusual aspect of this show is that the artists’ statements, unlike the fatuous platitudes often penned in that department, provide genuinely helpful information about techniques, intentions and inspirations, along with background anecdotes. Some artists even include very enlightening sketches and photos used in the preparation of the paintings.

In the more traditional vein, Michael Cleary’s smallish paintings in a detailed style, with cool greens, greys and muted earth tones, take the viewer into areas of the Canadian wilderness with a forbidding atmosphere familiar to anybody who has ventured into some of the more forsaken parts of this country. John Hansen’s take on landscape, based on masterly drawing skill, introduces a somewhat more modern flair, although one painting of sailboats in cradles, with various dockyard workers puttering around, shows, to my mind, traces of John Singer Sergeant’s classic touch with watercolour.

Anybody well versed in the watercolour scene in Canada knows that Tony Batten excels in his architectural watercolours of fiendishly difficult subjects – like the Doges palace in Venice. So it’s not surprising that we find such works here. Still, the strikingly original and dramatic composition of one painting stuns the viewer. You’re never going to find a better depiction of Venice than Mr Batten’s painting of the Scuola Grande di St. Rocco.
Left: Scuola Grande di San Rocco, Venice
20" x 28" watercolour
Winner of the 2009 Jarvis Sloan Award

Among other artists whose work I’ve admired for a long time are Mary Anne Ludlam and Brent Laycock. Ms Ludlam whittles landscapes down to almost abstract shapes, then executes them with a clear, transparent touch. One that has a particularly haunting effect shows a little wooden boat beached on a barren shore with an iceberg hulking on the horizon. (The preliminary work regarding this painting is fascinating.) Brent Laycock’s fresh, loose way with prairie landscapes works marvellously in a winter scene where the long shadows on the snow and the darkening sky make you want to hurry home for supper. This time around, though, Mr. Laycock surprised me with two wonderfully colourful and wild abstracts. What appeals to me especially is the fact that they glory in the expressive potential of watercolour, a medium not often used for abstract painting.

At first, Margaret Squire’s watercolours – created with small daubs of paint, almost in a pointillist style – seem too busy and dazzling to take in. After sitting for an afternoon in front of her Tunisian desert scene, however, I began to feel the shimmering heat and to long for refuge in the little stone hut under the palm trees that were now beginning to wave at me.

The works of Linda Finn and June Montgomery were new to me. All of Ms Finns’ paintings feature humans in some relationship to water. A fat man in a bathtub, covering his face with his hands, proves unexpectedly thought-provoking. As compared to other famous bathtub paintings, you couldn’t say this chap possesses the dignity of, say, Jean-Paul Marat (as painted by Jacques-Louis David), but a certain softness of focus expresses Ms Finn’s compassion for her troubled subject. June Montgomery’s works, somewhat reminiscent of Emily Carr’s, include many First Nations motifs, such as masks and totems. A painting of a statue conveys the quality of a certain kind of stone – perhaps jade – with tactile impact.

You can always count on internationally-renowned artist Rudi Stussi to mix things up. Here, we get one of his "skewed cityscapes" in which melting and toppling buildings somehow capture the action and light in downtown Toronto at night. In his somewhat more bizarre paintings, Picasso-like faces – i.e. split as in double-exposure photos – emerge from chaotic backgrounds with an overall ambiance not greatly out of synch with the Hallowe’en season.

For me, the most satisfying paintings in the show come from Jane Hunter. And here full disclosure is required. While I have previously met some of the artists in this show, the case of Ms Hunter is special. Many years ago, in Sarnia, Ontario, I was Ms Hunter’s first art student. She had just returned from the Ontario College of Art and every Tuesday evening I went to her house where she lit a fire in the grate and proceeded to take me through the basics of painting and drawing. At the end of the first session, we stood at the door, trying to reach a decision about the awkward business of a fee. The amount finally agreed upon was two dollars per lesson.

It was from Ms Hunter that I acquired a long-lasting love for the watercolour medium and its unique possibilities. Not to mention an introduction to the magic of art itself. Flipping through her sketch book one time, she stopped on a quick watercolour of a fascinating tangle of bushes, vines and trees. That woodsy nook struck me as so enchanting that I thought it must be some exotic place far away. "Oh no," she said with a laugh, "it’s just some spot in Canatara Park." (Sarnia’s large public playground.)

Having not seen Ms Hunter again in the many decades since those lessons, I was thrilled to encounter her gorgeous work here. A meticulous painting of leaves, rocks and weeds – actually a study of shapes and tones – looks like a patch of open water that Ms Hunter probably discovered one winter in the park near her home. In a very different mood, a blurry, hazy painting in the wet-in-wet technique bears the dream-related title "Pathway to Somewhere". A watercolour entitled "Rembrance" captures with exquisite delicacy the fading beauty of a motley collection of flowers in a glass vase, a wilting poppy central among them.

But the highlight of the show for me, indeed for many people – I saw several visitors head straight for it on entering the gallery – is a work with the enticing title "Up a Jungle River #1". Entirely in shades of green, showing dense foliage on a river bank and reflections in the water below, the painting exudes so much light and oxygen that it makes your lungs expand gratefully. The international environmental movement should adopt the painting as a representation of everything about this world that we are trying to preserve.

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