For photographer Joseph Hartman, the idea of creating artist portraits by capturing the deeply personal spaces of their studios really began in childhood. He has fond memories of being in the studio of his father, painter and printmaker John Hartman, and reveling in the experience. (Above: Studio of Shelley Adler, 2013)
So Hamilton-based Hartman translated boyhood happiness into a project that saw him cross the country photographing the studios of 100 contemporary Canadian artists over a five-year period.
The result is a series featuring large-scale chromogenic prints (each an edition of 9), which have been a hit on exhibition, and also a book.
You can see studios on Hartman’s website, here, and at the Stephen Bulger Gallery here. A link to his exhibition at the Art Gallery of Hamilton is here.
Below, a look at the studios of some of Canada’s most interesting artists.
Robert Davidson, 2016
Robert Davidson (Haida – Tsahl Eagle Clan) is one of Canada’s most decorated artists, a Northwest Coast master sculptor of totem poles and masks and a printmaker, painter and jeweler. Many of his works are considered post-modern masterpieces, for his distinctive, creative interpretations of traditional Haida form (Note: Artist info added by The Art Junkie for all studios shown).
Valérie Blass, 2015
The Montreal sculptor’s work takes shape across a broad range of techniques and mediums. From moulding and casting to assemblage and bricolage. Valérie Blass’s practice is rooted in a commitment to the unexpected, bridging the figurative and the abstract to reconfigure our understanding of how a given object, image or material can or should perform.
Attila Richard Lukacs, 2016
Lukacs is a Canadian-born, internationally acclaimed painter who became famous in the 1980s with large scale canvases of skinheads. He has spent time living and working in Vancouver, Berlin, New York and Hawaii. (CBC profile here)
Duane Linklater, 2016
Linklater is an Omaskêko Ininiwak artist, born in 1976, who works in sculpture, photography, film and video, installation and text works. He was the 2013 Sobey Award winner and received the Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award from the Canada Council for the Arts. He is represented by the Catriona Jeffries gallery in Vancouver.
John Scott, 2014
From the National Gallery of Canada: “John Scott views himself as a political activist and blue-collar artist. His work combines counterculture aesthetics of the late 1970s and the 1980s with a sociological ideology . . . Through drawings, installations and transformed objects, Scott presents an apocalyptic vision of a world ravaged by war and threatened by destruction.”
Images: Courtesy of Joseph Hartman and Stephen Bulger Gallery
Joseph Hartman recounts personal experiences making The Artist’s Studio in this walk-through of his AGH exhibition.
Discover more from Canadian Art Junkie
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Love open studio days when you get to go in and see an artist’s environment, just one I’m sure of many points of creation. I love all the marks and drips and “junk” that spur imagination!