Norm Dallin

Saskatoon artist’s paintings of domestic interiors celebrate the ordinary.

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Norm Dallin’s bedroom – at least the painterly version – has a sense of order and quietude. Objects occupy their own distinct spaces and radiate their particular energy, yet are bathed in a unifying warmth. Light pools on a grape-coloured floor in front of a full-length window framed by white curtains. The view, blocked by a high fence foregrounded by a snowy tree, bounces one’s gaze back into the room. 

The mirror over the dresser similarly blocks access, reflecting the fence with just a small patch of blue sky. A green chair sits empty, next to a plush fringed rug. The walls glow, a pale pink watercolour peeking through a thicker mauve gouache, creating a velvety opalescence. The room is completely ordinary and yet it is alive, not just with colour, but also with mystery. Who occupies this space? Where is it? Why do these objects seem so imbued with presence?

Dallin, 73, has been painting for a lifetime and it shows. Freshly relocated into a two-bedroom apartment in Saskatoon, he says he can no longer afford a studio and works instead at his kitchen table. He used to paint large abstracts and landscapes but, over time, storage became a problem. “Where do I put it all?” he asks ruefully. The small works in his show, Home and Away, on view at the Art Placement gallery in Saskatoon from July 24 to Aug. 26, can be tucked easily under his bed. 

The “Away” in his exhibition’s title refers to his annual migrations to Mexico to escape the Saskatchewan winter. He goes to the city of Mérida on the Yucatan peninsula where he captures the colonial ambience of interior spaces. One painting features two graceful chairs in front of an ornate mirror. Another offers a view of a lush garden through two open doors. The bright exterior light bounces off the tiled floor at the entranceway. It’s not surprising to learn that Dallin is fond of French artist Pierre Bonnard, who often painted interior scenes of high-ceilinged rooms with a view. Dallin’s work is tighter and more reductive than Bonnard, but there’s something similar in the way they handle colour and paint. 

Dallin attended what was then the Ontario College of Art in Toronto, and at one time had dealers in both Toronto and Montreal. They both died in the ’90s, he says, pulling his career out from under him. He also worked as a carpenter to support his family, which helped develop his sensibility for domestic spaces. 

Now, in this later stage of life, he has decided to paint “what’s around me, the ordinary things of our life” and explore what he sees as three of his strengths – drafting, composition and colour.

Colour is particularly important to Dallin, who mentions Saskatchewan painter William Perehudoff’s likening of colour to music. “All the different colours are like notes, and values – how light or dark they are – is like how loud they are,” says Dallin. “And then you take all these notes and put them together and put all these colours together and create some kind of a harmony, or disharmony, if you want. I really do think of colour very much in terms of music.” ■  

Norm Dallin: Home and Away on view at The Gallery / Art Placement in Saskatoon from July 24 to Aug. 26, 2021.

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