W.H. WEBB, "Alberta Drawn," March 28 to April 9, 2009, West End Gallery, Edmonton

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"Cleared Passage"

WH Webb, "Cleared Passage," acrylic on canvas, 36" X 30".

W.H. WEBB, Alberta Drawn

West End Gallery, Edmonton

March 28 to April 9, 2009

By Dina O'Meara

Texture plays a large role in W.H Webb’s acrylic paintings — the tactile image of the many, deep ruts in a snowy, country road, or the craggy mountains of his realist landscapes. A former art teacher from England, Webb has an affinity for the wide-open spaces of Alberta, and uncovering the possibilities and dashed hopes of a bumpy prairie road. “I found my dream in Alberta,” he says from his home in Forestburg, Alberta. Webb was trained as an abstract expressionist, but now characterizes himself as a “high-definition” landscape artist. His love of landscape is reflected not only in the precise capture of light on roads and perspective of space, but in the emotional response Webb’s country roads and mountain scenes stir in the viewer. This summer he added sky scenes after being caught near a tornado in August. “The images will never leave me, all the whirling clouds, the drama of it all,” he says. Webb works on large canvases, and this show will include works up to six feet long. When a piece takes up an entire wall, its like stepping right into the Alberta countryside – full of light, with a huge sky stretching out ahead from a ruler-straight road.