BRUCE HEAD, "A Survey: Selections for a Retrospective," Sept 9 - Oct 1, 2006, Ken Segal Gallery, Winnipeg
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"Untitled"
Bruce Head, "Untitled," concrete/pigment, 48" x 13".
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"Bruce Head"
Bruce Head.
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"Untitled"
Bruce Head, "Untitled," concrete/pigment, 48" x 13".
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"Timepiece"
Bruce Head, "Timepiece," 2002, acrylic on hardboard, 48" x 48".
BRUCE HEAD, A Survey: Selections for a Retrospective
Ken Segal Gallery, Winnipeg
Sept 9 - Oct 1, 2006
By Janice Rosen
One of Winnipeg’s most widely recognized artists, Bruce Head, RCA, is perhaps best known for his commissioned circular concrete wall in the underground concourse at Portage and Main. At home, Head lives immersed in his art. Paintings and sculptures fill his garden, home and attached studio. He moves steadily through these spaces, affably discussing his early paintings, some dating from the early ‘60s, with as much insight and enthusiasm as he does his current work. In fact, Head occasionally returns to these older works, altering as he sees fit, declaring: “all my works are works in progress, as long as I have them here.”
Touring his studio, he offers tidbits of information about the work, remembering visits with friends and holidays in warmer climates. In one painting, prominent in a front room, irregular vertical bars over bright mottled foliage refer to an outdoor kitchen protected from animals with walls of bamboo poles.
Head’s extensive experience as a graphic designer with the CBC is reflected in the constant search for “balance and composition” within his works. Painted without preliminary sketches, one piece brings ideas for another, forcing Head to paint several works concurrently to “get those ideas out of my mind.”
The larger concrete totems are somewhat more premeditated; he builds foam maquettes, with basic forms worked out before pouring the concrete. The totems evolve, in the search for equilibrium, with the addition of found objects used for their shape and texture within concrete moulds. Painted in the past with acrylics, pigments specifically designed for concrete are now used to colour the totems. Head discovered the pigments when a nearby mall was being developed. Intrigued by the sight of workers pouring coloured concrete, he soon tracked down a source for the newly developed pigments. He also mixes his own acrylics, experimenting and applying pigments over emulsion and vice versa, resulting in dense layers of colour within his abstract acrylic works.
Head has been working and showing his art steadily since graduating in 1953 from the University of Manitoba’s School of Art. He was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy in the early seventies. His work is held in numerous private and public Canadian collections, and he has major commissions exhibited through many galleries including The Winnipeg Art Gallery, the London Regional Gallery, Alberta College of Art & Design, the Art Gallery of Hamilton and the National Gallery of Canada.
Represented by: Ken Segal Gallery, Winnipeg; Birchwood Gallery, Winnipeg; Wallace Galleries, Calgary.