Interior Views: The Vivid Realism of Joice and John Hall
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"Quodlibet XVI"
John Hall, "Quodlibet XVI," acrylic on canvas, 9.5" x 15.25".
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Joice Hall
Joice Hall.
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John Hall
John Hall.
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"Storms and Rainbows III"
Joice Hall, "Storms and Rainbows III," oil on canvas, 24" x 96".
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"Okanagan Lake View"
Joice Hall, "Okanagan Lake View," oil on canvas, 15" x 66".
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"Still Life K6"
John Hall, "Still Life K6," acrylic on canvas, 9" x 6".
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"Quodlibet XVI"
John Hall, "Quodlibet XVI," acrylic on canvas, 9.5" x 15.25".
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"Quodlibet II"
John Hall, "Quodlibet II," acrylic on canvas, 9.5" x 15.25".
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"Quodlibet IV"
John Hall, "Quodlibet IV," acrylic on canvas, 9.5" x 15.25".
Interior Views: The Vivid Realism of Joice and John Hall
By Portia Priegert
Artists John and Joice Hall have a home with a spectacular view. On a sunny day, the sparkling water of Okanagan Lake is as vibrant as one of John's paintings and the craggy, pine-covered slopes on the far shore create a dramatic backdrop that Joice often features in her landscapes. "You get a bit jaded and then someone comes along and says: 'What a view!' and you connect with it again," says Joice. "The first summer, I was just totally knocked out with the lighting all day long. It's amazing."
The Halls moved to their hillside home in Kelowna four years ago after John retired from a 25-year career teaching art at the University of Calgary. A visit to the Okanagan prompted them to abandon plans to live in Mexico, where they had kept a second home for a dozen years. It's easy to see what attracted them to the B.C. Interior. The arid hills with sparse clumps of yellowing grass are reminiscent of the Mexican landscape. And across the vineyards from their adobe-coloured rancher, the bells of the Mission Hill winery toll the hours like the churches of San Miguel de Allende, the Mexican artists' colony where they used to spend half the year painting.
The Halls have set up tidy his-and-hers studios in the lower level of their home. John, whose career includes a 1979 solo show at the National Gallery of Canada and a major retrospective at the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City in 1994, has been working on small still-life paintings in the pulsating colours and fastidious realism that have long been his trademark. For her part, Joice has been inspired by the local landscape to continue the precisely detailed panoramic format that she began doing in Mexico. Her most recent paintings are looser and more evocative than her earlier work. Romantic and mysterious, they feature rainbows and ominous storm clouds photographed by Joice at various times of the day and evening from the couple's top deck. "I used artistic license to create my own version of the storms," she says. "I feel this series has only begun; I have many more storms to create and rainbows to try to capture."
John calls his latest series Quodlibet, a Latin word that refers to a philosophical or theological point presented for debate. He began the series a year ago when the Royal Canadian Academy of Art, to which he was elected in 1975, asked him to create a small-format work for reproduction in a limited-edition portfolio. In taking on the project, John says he asked two questions. First, can an ordinary object become interesting through the act of painting it? And, second, can a painting that eschews many of the accepted markers of fine art - an overt brush stroke or pictorial distortion, for instance - still be a meaningful work of art? Those questions have occupied him for 17 paintings so far.
John began the series with a bowl of marbles and then moved to candy suckers and finally to fruit that references Okanagan orchards. The paintings again demonstrate his mastery of the acrylic medium with their careful evocation of glistening grapes, burnished plums and shiny lemon peel. They have a timeless old-world quality reminiscent of 17th-century Dutch still-life painting. They also breathe more than his usual compositions, which are densely structured and feature heightened colour that allows the eye little pause, a quality that critic Gary Michael Dault has described as a mix of "chromatic blare" and "airless urgency."
Throughout his career, John has focused on meticulous still-life paintings of everyday objects, often mass-produced kitsch made from plastic, glass or tin. "It's the world I grew up with," John says of his childhood in Edmonton. "As a kid it really was the world of pop culture that defined my life, with very little fine art to be had . . . what I did know about was comic books and Saturday-afternoon matinees at the theatre and pop music. I'm still fond of those things."
Before he starts painting, John arranges objects, searching for compositions that excite him. He photographs various possibilities with a digital camera and then intensifies colour contrasts on his computer. Working from these templates, he can take three months to finish larger paintings.
The Halls, who have been married 39 years, met while shopping for fish-tackle boxes to hold their art supplies while first-year students at what was then the Alberta College of Art in Calgary. "From my side of the aisle, I reached through the rack to the perfect-looking box," says John. "And just as I touched that box, in shot a hand from the other side. Guess whose hand? Being the perfect gentleman, I said: 'Please take the good box.' " The Halls married during their fourth year of studies, heading to Banff for a weekend honeymoon before returning to classes on Monday. They have two children, Janine, 38, and Jarvis, 35, as well as four grandchildren.
John's work is generally classified as photo-realism, a movement that gained popularity with influential curators in the 1970s. Leading practitioners include artists such as Richard Estes, known for New York street scenes, and Audrey Flack, who drew attention by focusing on jewellery, glass and other reflective surfaces. The tastes of curators have changed, but John has remained steadfast, leading critic John Bentley Mays of the Globe and Mail to describe him as "an odd-man-out"in the Canadian art world. "John and I always feel a little bit foreign in today's art situations, often because a lot of young artists don't give it a second look," Joice acknowledges. "I think they think there's not enough in it, because it really is just about creating an image in paint."
Asked why he persists in the time-consuming labour of replicating reality, especially given the relative ease of photography, John jokes: "It must be a personality disorder of some sort." But on a more serious note, he explains that he is interested in the formal process of painting - the techniques of translating what he sees into another medium. "It's the way to describe a blast of light or a patch of shadow or a bit of texture - that's what counts."
It's something both John and Joice say they still find endlessly challenging after four decades as painters.
An exhibition of works by John and Joice Hall was held last summer at the Art Ark, a commercial gallery in Kelowna. Both have upcoming solo shows in Calgary, John in October at Newzones Gallery and Joice next spring at Wallace Galleries. John also has a show in March at Regina's Rosemont Art Gallery.
Biographical Highlights
JOHN HALL
-Born in Edmonton
-1960-1965, Diploma, Alberta College of Art
-1965-1966, Instituto Allende, Mexico
-Selected Solo Exhibitions in Canada
- National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
- Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
- Glenbow Museum, Calgary
- Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Halifax
-Selected Solo International Exhibitions
- Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City
-Elected to the Royal Canadian Academy in 1975.
-Professor Emeritus at the University of Calgary
JOICE HALL
-Born in Edmonton
-1960-1965, Diploma, Alberta College of Art
-Selected Solo Exhibitions in Canada
- Wallace Galleries, Canadian Art Galleries, Paul Kuhn Fine Arts, Calgary
- Atelier Gallery, Vancouver
- Art Gallery of Hamilton, Hamilton
- Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Lethbridge
-Selected Solo International Exhibitions
- Casa Verde Galeria, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico
-Elected to the Royal Canadian Academy in 2000.
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