TERRY FENTON
Born: July 1, 1940, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada.
Terry Fenton studied art in the late 1950s at Regina College under members of the Regina Five. In 1962 he graduated from the University of Saskatchewan with a major in English literature.
Since 1965 he has worked extensively as a curator and public art gallery director. From 1972 to 1988 he served as director of The Edmonton Art Gallery. His accomplishments there included close and stimulating relations with the Edmonton art community, a challenging exhibition program, and the establishment of a collection of regional and international contemporary art unique in Canada. From 1988 to 1993 he served as artistic director of the Leighton Foundation, south of Calgary, where he established a series of guest residencies for landscape painters. From 1993 to 1997 he served as director of the Mendel Art Gallery in Saskatoon. Since that time he has pursued a career as a landscape painter, with occasional forays into art writing and web design.
Fenton has painted the Western Canadian landscape for the past 35 years. His paintings can be found in public and private collections in North America and England. Dealers in Regina, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary, Victoria, New York, and Houston represent his art. In 2004 "A Wide Horizon" an exhibition of his paintings of Southwestern Saskatchewan was mounted by the Swift Current and Moose Jaw Art Galleries. He has also exhibited recently at Mayberry Galleries in Winnipeg, Virginia Christopher Galleries in Calgary, and Winchester Fine Art in Victoria.
He presently lives in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
Terry Fenton has this to say of is recent paintings:
The Saskatchewan prairies are the big part of Canada that the Group of Seven didn't paint. ("Bury me not on the lone prairie," lamented A. Y. Jackson. "I could do nothing with the place.") Because of their apparent lack of scenery, the open prairies have seldom been painted. Even painters who've flourished in Saskatchewan have gravitated to the river valleys in the plains or to the aspen parkland to the north and east. While I admire and have absorbed much from artists in Saskatoon, Edmonton, and Calgary, I'm drawn south and west to the open grasslands. Why do I like them so much? Partly, I suspect, because I was born and raised in Regina but also because the color and light there is so luminous. Because the solutions found by painters from the past don't work well in the wide-open spaces, I've tried to find new ones. I try to use colour to create the illusion of light,
A word about materials: Many of these paintings are painted with oil paint on paper: high quality rag watercolour paper. This medium is by no means new, having been used by artists as accomplished as Corot and Vuillard. Their paintings, not protected by glass, have stood the test of time both physically and aesthetically.
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