Carl Brenders

" TARGET PRACTICE"

950 s/n Offset Lithograph 18"x 17.75" $350

The practice of target shooting is one that engages many people as a means to develop their skills of concentration through physical and mental co-ordination. At one level, the literal level, this picture depicts the exercise of skill that can, in a sense, be compared with the skill of painting which also demands an acute sensitivity of co-ordination between eye and hand.At another level, however, the painting can be viewed as expressing the relationship between the two men whom we recognize as a father and his son. The image points to the sense of continuity between generations in which the older man comes to realize his position as a supportive figure, able to advise on the basis of his experience but where the responsibility for action has been passed onto the skills of the younger man, onto the next generation. Special thanks to David Burnett for his insightful writings on the works of Alex Colville

" TO PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND "

s/n Offset Lithograph 17.75"x 26.75" $350

This is one of Alex's best known works with great light and form. Having gone to the Maratimes for University , I can relate to this picture with the expansive sky , the dark blue ocean and wanting to see everything out there.
Alex Colville was born in Toronto on the 24 of August 1920, but considers himself a Maritimer having moved with his family to Nova Scotia in 1929. He studied art at Mount Allison University, N.B. and on graduating in 1942 joined the Canadian Army and served in Europe as a member of the War Art program. He taught art and art history at Mount Allison University from 1946 to 1963 before devoting himself full-time to his painting and print-making.

" FRENCH CROSS "

950 s/n Offset Lithograph 18.5" x 26" $275

A young woman twists in the saddle of her mount, her attention caught by the intricate cross silhouetted against the sky. Her horse plods on, indifferent both to the cross and the woman's interest in it. This cross is a memorial to the Acadian people who were expelled from Nova Scotia in the mid eighteenth century. It stands at Grand Pr'e, on the shores of the Bay of Fundy, a point according to local tradition from where many of the Acadians were shipped away from their homes.

The painting draws a poignant contrast, for while the young woman's gaze forms a link between the present and the past in human affairs, the natural world represented by the horse and the landscape continues a rhythm unchanged by such concerns.

" THREE SHEEP "

950 s/n Offset Lithograph 13.25"x 21.5" $250

The animal world has always taken a central role in Colville's work. He has said how he thinks of animals as "kinds of angels", that in contrast to human beings they are incapable of evil.

The dogs and cats that have been the artist's family pets have often appeared in his paintings; horses and cows have also figured as subjects in his work as also, in two instances, have sheep. In Three Sheep Colville transforms the humble simplicity of these ruminant lives into a model of balance and contentment.

ALEX COLVILLE