John Hartman, Across the Great Divide, Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto, Nov. 3 to Nov. 26, 2016

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John Hartman at Nicholas Metivier Gallery installation

Across the Great Divide is a solo exhibition featuring more than 20 new paintings of the Rocky Mountains by celebrated Ontario artist John Hartman. Since 2003, Hartman has spent time each year painting in the Rockies and learning about the region’s rich history and geography. For the past two years, he has almost exclusively painted snowy mountain landscapes inspired by a 2014 flight in a chartered plane over the Great Divide Traverse between Jasper and Lake Louise. 

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John Hartman, "Don Gardner, Across the Great Divide," 2016

oil on linen, 70" x 76". Courtesy of Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto

The Great Divide Traverse is a treacherous pass through the Rockies first navigated by a group of Canadian skiers in 1967. In 2012, Hartman met one of those skiers, Don Gardner, and became fascinated by stories from that ambitious journey. One painting in the exhibition shows Gardner with his notebooks and camping equipment against the backdrop of the mountains. It’s the only portrait, but it offers context to the landscapes with its nod to an important local narrative – a longstanding trademark of Hartman’s work.

Hartman’s landscape paintings skillfully convey the immensity and grandeur of this important region. His stylistic approach is a departure from much of his work of the last two decades, including his series of aerial cityscapes of bustling places such as New York, Montreal and Calgary. Those paintings, and even ones depicting Georgian Bay, where he is based, can be overcast with a certain darkness. In this newest work, though, he uses a variety of pastel blues, purples and pinks in an impasto style. The resulting use of colour is complex, as are his brushstrokes. The landscapes are vividly bright, creating an impression of soothing uniformity with a pristine quality that prompts feelings of calm and isolation, perhaps suggestive of the vistas one may behold atop the mountains themselves.

John Hartman, "Freshfield Lake and Mt. Freshfield," 2016

John Hartman, "Nigel Pass," 2016

John Hartman, "The Lyells," 2016

Hartman will exhibit similar work in a larger exhibition at the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies in Banff in April.

You might also be interested in Doug Maclean's 2006 review of "Far and Wide: Alberta Landscapes" at the Art Gallery of Alberta.