British Columbia is home to many amazing artists. James Picard and Joe Rosenblatt are two of them. While the former takes a varied approach to subject matter, forms and materials, the latter aims for a focused vision of his quirky universe.
James Picard: Cocktail Parties & Monsters
James Picard is an artist of extreme energy, passion and diversity. Born in Toronto, he has been drawing, painting and sculpting since he was a child. He apprenticed with the painters Harold Town and Ramon Amor and from early on has won prizes and other forms of acknowledgment for his work across North America. Exhibiting in a range of cities from New York to Paris, Picard has become renowned for his ability to draw from inspirations as varied as Francis Bacon, Thomas Gainsborough and Pablo Picasso.
Able to copy any of the masters, he has also forged his own style in both watercolours, inks and oils. He can capture the lightheartedness of the cocktail party and the disruption of nightmares. When he's not creating art, he's teaching its techniques to others, most notably inner city children, and has received commendations from the charities he's donated his time and talents to. Along with reviews and awards, Picard has also had a biography written about him and a documentary filmed. Even his website has garnered acclaim!
Joe Rosenblatt: Crazy Angels & Cats
Born in 1933, Joe Rosenblatt has been drawing and painting his whole life. Primarily known as a Governor General's award winning poet, Rosenblatt has always maintained the connections between his poetry and his art. He claimed in an interview with me, "My poetry and the visual arts nourish each other. There is a cross fertilization of ideas. As a result of this reciprocal process the two disciplines conjoin as one. I make no distinction between creating visual art and writing poetry; for me, painting and drawing are just other ways of writing poetry."
And indeed, in his work, the preoccupations of both art forms in terms of subject matter are similar; as he puts it,: "birds, cats, bees and fauna." However, each practice highlights different aspects of his obsessions; the writing is more surreal, the art is more fanciful. Both mediums serving to find variant ways of fleshing out his relationship to the universe.
Although he hasn't received the acclaim Picard has for his art, Rosenblatt has certainly had renown. His paintings are in many Canadian archives, he shows regularly in galleries and his work graces the covers or interiors of a variety of books. The older he gets, the more vivid and lively his inks and oils are becoming, teeming with felines, angels, demons, birds, fish, flowers and other intricate, bright energies.
Picard and Rosenblatt certainly exemplify two very different types of artists who are equally dedicated to a transcendent vision of the world.
Catherine Owen - Catherine Owen, MA 2001, has published ten award winning books of poetry/prose. Her writing is lyrical, well-researched and fully ...
