Chris Cran

Chris Cran (born 1949 in Ocean Falls, British Columbia) He has been described in The New York Times as a painter who "…has built a career on tampering with people’s perceptions." In an article published in Galleries West, Jeffrey Spalding, who was senior curator at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery in New Brunswick, described the 2015–2016 multi-partner major survey of Cran's work at the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Alberta (AGA) and the Southern Alberta Art Gallery (SAAG), Lethbridge, Alberta as a "remarkable and unique career milestone" with exhibition organizers describing Cran as "influential" and "one of the country’s most notable painters of the last few decades."

Education and artistic influences

Cran studied at the Kootenay School of Art, Nelson, B.C. and Alberta College of Art and Design (ACAD) (Honours painting, 1979). In 1978 Cran attended a lecture in Edmonton by American art critic Clement Greenberg – one of a series Greenberg presented in that city. Cran was provoked and irritated by Greenberg's already outdated dogma. Greenberg had held such sway in Canada as well as the United States and was considered by some to be one of the most renowned art critics in American history. Critics such as Leo Steinberg and others argued that Greenberg dealt more with what artists and curators could not do, such as contextualize an art object and glorify kitsch. Cran was of the next generation of artists who embraced post-modernity and Greenberg's ideas were entrenched in modernity.

Work In a 2003 review published in Canadian Art Magazine, Calgary Herald art critic Nancy Tousley compared Cran's creative process to meteorological events, storms, showers and "thunderous, lightning speed one offs" in which he produces experimental works based on an idea as catalyst using a handful of different styles. The result is a body of work that looks like it was not produced by one artist but many. In his review of Cran's 2009 exhibition entitled Bright Spiral Standard at Toronto's Clint Roenisch Gallery, The Globe and Mails art critic Gary Michael Dault described Cran's exhibition as a "dazzling sojourn in sophisticated visuality" and "fun" with its "shimmering, graphically delicate but exacting paintings." Dault said that Cran's allusive work borders on visual satire in which Cran gleefully references, analyses, demystifies and skillfully manipulates different genres and styles including still life, portraiture, and abstraction informed by Pop Art, Photo-realism, and Op Art.

Awards and honours Cran was inducted into the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 2002.

Cran was elected a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society in 2015.

In 2005 Cran was awarded the Keith Evans Memorial Scholarship to assist Cran in his senior artist-in-residence tenure at The Banff Centre, where he mentored other artists while producing his own new works. Canadian Biennial held November 2, 2012 to February 18, 2013, at the National Gallery of Canada (NGC). The NGC biennial showcases recent purchases made for the gallery's permanent collection. Three of Cran's works – Guest Host, 2011, Hand Gesture No. 6 (OK), 1992 and Manifesto, 2010 – were acquired in 2012.

Cran's work was also selected for the 2013 Alberta Biennial of Contemporary Art, which featuring 36 Alberta-based artists in an exhibition curated by Nancy Tousley and entitled The News From Here. The Award honours innovative Calgary-based artists who are acknowledged by their peers, have achieved national and/or international recognition and "have significantly enriched artistic discourse in Canada."

Selected exhibitions

Chris Cran: Surveying the Damage, 1977–97 In 1999 his retrospective exhibition entitled Chris Cran: Surveying the Damage, 1977–97 with works produced over two decades – including his student years at ACAD – was shown at the Kelowna Art Gallery in British Columbia, in Saskatoon, and in Toronto at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art (July 8, 1999 – October, 1999).

The exhibition Inherent Virtue, at the Southern Alberta Art Gallery (SAAG), Lethbridge, Alberta from September 25, 2015, to November 22, 2015, was part of the major survey of Cran's work.

Selected collections Cran's work is in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Art Gallery of Windsor, Banff Centre for the Arts, Canada Council Art Bank, Edmonton Art Gallery, Glenbow Museum, Landfall Press, New York, New York, MacKenzie Art Gallery, Mendel Art Gallery, Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, Nickle Arts Museum, North York Art Gallery, University of Lethbridge Art Gallery and private collections.