James Wyper's Transcendent Paintings

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James Wyper, “When All is Fired by Passion’s Kiss,” 2016

acrylic on canvas, 40” x 38.5”

When I meet West Coast artist James Wyper at the Masters Gallery in Calgary, where his show, Transcend is on view until May 20, I tell him I have a brother who lives in Munich. I tell him there is a room there where one can sit all day and stare at Cy Twombly’s Lepanto, a dozen panels that depict a pivotal 1571 naval battle between the Christians and the Ottomans off the coast of Greece. I tell Wyper that a single mesmerizing triangle in one of his paintings evokes all the emotion, call it a pang, if you will, of this experience, distant in both space and time. I tell him I miss my brother.

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James Wyper, “What the Sea Brought Today,” 2016

acrylic on canvas, 40” x 38.5”

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James Wyper, “Dryad’s Kingdom,” 2016

acrylic on canvas, 40” x 38.5”

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James Wyper, “Artemisia Absinthium,” 2016

acrylic on canvas, 40” x 38.5”

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And Wyper tells me that the purpose of an artist is to ground consciousness in reality. He tells me his state of being while painting transcends, and that when I look at one of his paintings my consciousness makes a unique version only I can see. He tells me his paintings are not abstractions, but in some ways like landscapes. And they are no more an abstraction and no less a landscape than the sunlight dispersed and dappled by fluttering leaves or the pound and spray of surf hitting black rock and pale sand. He tells me he prepares the ground layer freely, with instinct and intuition. Then he disciplines it with meticulous geometry. And so Wyper's paintings reflect back to us the dichotomies of our lives – the dying of fall and the birth of spring, the struggle between seeking perfection and the spontaneous thrill of the imperfect, the freedom of our consciousness pressed against our worldly constraints, all balanced like gently tipping scales.