JIM GORDANEER
"Polo Ponies and Corgis"
Jim Gordaneer, "Polo Ponies and Corgis," oil on canvas, 48" x 48".
JIM GORDANEER
By Suzanne Mir
Since moving from Ontario in the 1960s, Jim Gordaneer has worked in a small studio behind his modest home in Victoria, doing what he loves best: painting. Gordaneer’s career began in the post-Painter’s Eleven era that defined Canada’s own school of modernism. He has been lauded by art historians as a pioneer of abstract expressionism in Canada. As a teacher, Gordaneer has influenced a generation of artists in Victoria. His creative motto of thinking and working “from the inside out” has been instrumental in directing young painters to look and feel the form from this perspective. At the same time, Gordaneer considers drawing and mark-making to be essential skills. His canvases are alive with motion and dissolving images that race across the surface toward the viewer as if they were caught momentarily off-guard. His colours ebb and flow with tension and vitality, aiding the transient quality of the gestures. An exhibition in March at the Fran Willis Gallery, Victoria, will be a visual panorama of Gordaneer’s recent work.