Paul Van Ginkel, Gallery Artist
Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada in 1960, Paul moved with his family to Calgary, Alberta in 1973. In search of change and new stimulation he then moved to Vancouver, B.C. in 1996, however, returned to Calgary in 2001. Prior to earning a Master of Fine Arts degree from Syracuse University in New York, Paul was educated at the Alberta College of Art in Calgary. After working for the Calgary Herald newspaper as an editorial illustrator (as well as a freelance commercial illustrator) for 6 years, he’s been a fine art painter since 1990. Part of Paul’s growth as an artist has come from extended painting (and research) trips to major art centres including New York, Italy, Santa Fe, Mexico and Australia. He also continues to travel the globe in search of new artistic stimulation while expanding his vast archive of photographic reference material. An example of one of these trips was travelling to Seville and Madrid, Spain, to research Flamenco culture in preparation for a new series of paintings. An upcoming trip will be to Africa.
Articles on Paul’s art have been published in numerous major magazines and newspapers (including a cover feature story in Southwest Art Magazine). He’s also been honoured with many distinctions and awards for his work including being selected by Fresco Fine Art Publishers (Albuquerque, New Mexico) as one of the top Western artists working today (a hard cover book was published, titled “Western Traditions – Contemporary Artists of the American West”). He’s also received numerous prestigious commissions including being the first fine artist selected to paint the annual Calgary Stampede poster in 2006, considered the pinnacle of Western art. Part of the commission included having the original painting sold at the Stampede auction. This new Stampede poster tradition continues today.
Despite the challenge of painting many different subjects that inevitably inspire new techniques and styles, Paul specializes in Western themes, specifically equine subjects. Intensely drawn to the beauty, passion, power and history of the horse, Paul feels he can also execute a diverse variety of moods and compositions from a small painting of a single quiet foul to a large canvas of a 100 stampeding horses to an abstract and impressionistic piece. Fortunately, Calgary is an exceptional market for Western paintings including at the annual Calgary Stampede and Exhibition. Paul’s first painting in the annual Western Art Auction was in 1986 and he continues to be included each year. After receiving the “Best of Show” award at the Stampede auction in 1990, the following year he staged his first of 15 consecutive exhibitions at the Calgary Stampede Western Showcase. In addition to Calgary, a very strong market for Western paintings is the Southwest United States. At one point Paul had significant gallery representation in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Scottsdale, Arizona, Aspen, Colorado, Jackson Hole, Wyoming and San Antonio, Texas. Confident with his business acumen as a result of the many years exhibiting at the Calgary Stampede and in some of the top Southwest United States galleries, Paul chose to exclusively represent and exhibit his own art. He and his wife Kristin (a retired architect) designed and built a Calgary home that included Paul’s gallery. For 6 years they hosted private exhibitions of Paul’s work and now look forward to the new challenge of operating the Van Ginkel Art Gallery in Inglewood, Calgary. Paul is married to Kristin and have a beautiful daughter, Isabella Josephine, born in 2006.
“I’m committed to a life of creating images. My primary goal is to master the art of painting and develop increasingly the ability to convey my passion for the subjects I explore. These paintings are intended to document my diverse experiences in life and intimately express what inspires me. I expect my painting “style” to continue to evolve as I strive to express how I feel about the subject I’m focussed on. I’m never preoccupied with technique, rather I allow the painting’s subject, expression and voice to dictate the type of “visual life” it should have. I feel each painting is a creative expression similar to a piece of music, dance performance or poetry. For me, the symbolic ritual of signing the painting represents the completion of the creation, however, also the beginning of its long journey through an unknown future.”