Mark Grantham

PRESS RELEASE: Immediate

Mark Grantham celebrates his fifteenth solo exhibition at Studio 21 Fine Art with a collection of sixteen paintings that depict evocative glimpses or our fair city.

These paintings are characteristically flawless in their representation of Halifax’s architectural beauty and perspective views. Using a combination of colour and deft brush strokes the artist plays with the effects of light bringing a certain intensity of atmosphere to the work. The artist comments on his use of light:

“Whether I am painting rays of sunlight passing through the summer trees at Point Pleasant, or tombstones illuminated by the low-angled winter sun, it is light that gives a subject its distinctive mood and impact. Light is always the unifying element. “

Images of Point Pleasant Park on a sunny morning nearly bring the mingled scent of forest and ocean to the viewer through recollection. A portrait of a small house at Christmastime brings alive the quieting sound of falling snow and the tinge of wood-smoke in the air from the wisp of grey at the chimney pot. Even the snowflakes touch our eyelashes - the viewer is a quiet voyeur in the twilight of evening - drawn to gaze at the warm glow of holiday lights framed in the windows.

There is a quietness to these new paintings - as though we have come upon these scenes just after someone has walked there. This is partly because the artist has chosen to leave out the human figure in all but two of the paintings, but traces of life are found in every painting. A curtain, or blind that is partially drawn makes us wait for a figure to pass by. Bright red geraniums in windows or window boxes, wreaths on doors, a light in the window and animated jack-o-lanterns on the front porch all mark the presence of the inhabitants. Even where the artist depicts perspectives of the wintry park or cemetery, there is a sense of reverence about the moment he captures.

Mark Grantham is a Halifax-born artist and he holds a Masters degree in Architecture and a Bachelor of Environmental Design Studies degree from the Technical University of Nova Scotia. His work is held in many private and public collections such as the Nova Scotia Art Bank and the Canada Council Art Bank.