For the last four decades Chris Cran has experimented with traditional genres of painting such as still life and portraiture while at the same time challenging preconceived notions of these genres by creating tensions between a wide range of discordant styles notably Op Art, Pop Art, Photo-realism and Modernist Abstraction. He further complicates the experience with trompe l’oeil compositions in which the appearance of an image belies the method of its creation so that works that appear to be photographs, reliefs, or prints have been in fact rendered with paint. Art historical references, spoofs of painting conventions, and images from pulp magazines of the 1950s and 1960s are layered throughout, resulting in works that exude a rare and unapologetic boldness. Yet underneath the multitude of styles, techniques and a slippery sense of humor lies an insatiable appetite for experimenting with ideas that captivate the intellect and imagination, often those surrounding conventions of perception, artifice, theatricality and the art experience. Cran’s work is proof that painting has not lost its power to be a dynamic, disruptive medium that can exist in a critical relationship to the world. Chris Cran has been exhibiting across the country since the late 1970s and his work is included in numerous private and public collections, among them the National Gallery of Canada and the Art Gallery of Alberta. Cran has an active presence in Canada and specifically in Alberta where he has influenced a generation of artists at the Alberta College of Art and Design. He lives and works in Calgary.

Chris Cran: Sincerely Yours

Arts & Photography

Wood, William

Drouin-Brisebois, Josée

McCulloch, Bruce

Tousley, Nancy

Doherty, Ryan

History & Criticism

Natl Gallery of Canada

David Hoffos: The Lethbridge illusionist and his cinema of attractions

Distributed by ABC Art Books Canada

A Sublime Vernacular examines the extraordinary career of Levine Flexhaug (19181974), an itinerant artist who sold thousands of variations of essentially the same idyllic mountain scene in national parks, resorts, department stores, restaurants and bars across western Canada from the late 1930s through the 1960s. A self-described speed painter”, he turned out paintings in a matter of minutes, often working on several at the same time, that mesmerized customers as they watched them come to life. Flexhaug was painting a generic landscape fantasy for a society that had been shaped by the Dust Bowl and Depression, but the way he turned that popular formula inside out resulted in paintings of extraordinary richness and invention. This book features more than 120 color reproductions of his paintings and historic photographs. Essays explore his relationship to the tradition of ideal landscape painting, the Prairie influence on his art and career, and his place within both the history of market-driven” art and the tradition of Canadian landscape painting. Published on the occasion of the first comprehensive exhibition of Flexhaug’s paintings, this book is a study of a time, a place, and the art and life of a little known but altogether fascinating artist.

A Sublime Vernacular: The Landscape Paintings of Levine Flexhaug

WHITE, PETER

Figure 1 Publishing

Gathie Falk: Revelations

Geoghegan, John

Milroy, Sarah

Anderson, Jocelyn

Augaitis, Daina

Chris Cran : Surveying the Damage, 1977 - 1977

Nasgaard, Roald

Cran, Chris

Kelowna Art Gallery

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Books by Tousley, Nancy