Ivan Eyre

Landscapes & Still Lifes incorporates a selection of 11 paintings from the WAG’s permanent collection by one of Manitoba’s most renowned artists. Born in Tullymet, Saskatchewan, Ivan Eyre moved to Winnipeg in 1959. Through the 1960s and 1970s, the decades reflected in this exhibition, Eyre developed a unique approach to both the landscape and still life painting traditions. Specifically, his work from this period coveys a highly ambiguous sense of scale that effectively conflates the two genres. Landscapes – completely invented by the artist – look like magnifications of something microscopic. Conversely, the piled scraps or the jumble of unrelated objects that constitute Eyre’s still lifes often assume an architectural grandeur. In Eyre’s unconventional work the external world, whether a forest or a teacup, always appears filtered through the artist’s private and deeply internalized creative approach.