Author Archives

J Walters

I curate visual arts under The Art Junkie banner and I write from time to time on Colder by The Lake.

Sketchbook Saturday – Surreal

No better place than a sketchbook to portray the mix of fact and fancy that creates the surreal. (Above: Pat Perry) Such a wide range of styles in this genre, but always imaginative. From Jared Muralt on Behance. From Miles Johnston Sketchbook, here. These creatures are from Vorja […]

Ole Aakjær – Powerful women

Ole Aakjær is a Copenhagen-based, internationally-renowned watercolor and ink artist best known for large-format, highly symbolic works that celebrate the power of women. He’s on exhibition at Galerie LeRoyer in Toronto. Aakjær explores the feminine persona through the combination of watercolor, tattoo art, symbols and letters, inspired by […]

Clifford George – Celebration

The studio paintings of renowned Newfoundland artist Clifford George come from onsite sketchbook drawings that map the layout of the land and the seascape of the places he visits. “The rockfaces form towers, seabirds and the ebb and flow of the tide are my symphony,” George says. “The […]

Looted Nazi Art Returned

A Toronto company that specializes in the recovery of valuable artworks looted from families in Europe during WWII is behind the return of a 19th Century painting to the heirs who rightfully own it. The Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge University in the U.K. (above) has agreed to return […]

Lake of the Woods – Islands

What a fascinating project. Artist Randolph Parker and gallery owner Bill Mayberry spent five years scouting remote Lake of the Woods for inspirational sites, resulting in 220 paintings of islands in its maze of inlets and bays. They covered 2,800 km, there’s an interactive map of painting locations, and […]

Ceramics: The Artifacts Series

From the Archives:  Republished because this series of works is a long-time favourite. See what you think.  Kenneth Baskin’s inspired mechanical objects are artifacts, derived from the advent of the industrial revolution.  The works may look like metal, but are almost entirely ceramic.  Baskin says our industrial roots […]