Operated by the Calgary Contemporary Arts Society

Home
Current Exhibit
Future Exhibits
Past Exhibits

 

 

November 15, 2001

CON MEMORIAM:
Eve Koch & John Kenneth Esler

Opening of the exhibition was held on Thursday, November 15, 2001 at 7:30 p.m. at the Triangle Gallery with the opening remarks by Jacek Malec, Gallery Director and followed by a wine & cheese reception.

TIME PASSING:
JOHN KENNETH ESLER AND EVE KOCH

In the summer of 2001, the visual arts community in Calgary had lost two remarkable artists and the animators of cultural life in this city: Eve Koch and John Kenneth Esler. Koch and Esler died after a long struggle with cancer. Both artists had carved their unique niche in the history of contemporary art of this province. Koch and Esler were one of the founding members of the Triangle Gallery of Visual Arts and the key supporters of this organization. Con Memoriam: Eve Koch & John Kenneth Esler exhibition pays the homage to these two remarkable artists and highlights their outstanding contributions to contemporary Canadian art.

 


Eve Koch - Give Me Shelter, 2001; Acrylic on Canvas

Eve Koch - Prejudice, 1976; Acrylic on Paper


Eve Koch - Blonde Violence, 1986;
Acrylic on Canvas

John Kenneth Esler - Requiem, 1971;
Etching on Paper



John Kenneth Esler - The Last Waltz, 1978;
Coloured etching on Paper

John Kenneth Esler - Night Trees, 1973;
Etching on Paper
 

John Kenneth Esler (1933 - 2001) - Main Gallery

J.K. Esler had gained his national and international reputation for making an impact on a new generation of print artists by demonstrating a strong commitment to the craft of printmaking and the exploration of the creative and theoretical boundaries of this discipline. Born in 1933 in Pilot Mount, Manitoba, Esler was considered an important figure in post-1970 Alberta art. Graduated with a BFA in 1960 and a BEd in 1962 from the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Esler was engaged in experimentation, attempting to push print techniques and the imagery in new direction.

In 1963, he went on an extended trip to Europe and, in 1964, he assumed a teaching post at the Alberta College of Art in Calgary. During his four-year tenure at the college, Esler was instrumental in planning and implementing the college's printmaking program and served as an instructor, mentor, and a colleague for many students and fellow teachers. From 1968 to 1980 he initiated significant improvements in the printmaking facilities at the University of Calgary, where he taught intaglio, lithography, and drawing. Esler was not teaching during his tenure at the University of Calgary, but was also active in a number of organizations as an exhibiting artist, as the first Chairman for the Print and Drawing Council of Canada, and was instrumental in organizing its first biennial exhibition in Alberta in 1978.

In addition to that, Esler initiated and founded two print facilities: Trojan Press in 1978, and (Studio) JKE in 1987, which played a critical role as a meeting place for the print artists to refine their printmaking practices and to learn more about current trends and developments in the international printmaking milieu.

As an artist, Esler helped to bridge the claustrophobic provincialism of the arts in Calgary, and established an international reputation for himself as an avant-garde printmaker. He was a jury member for such print shows as the 7th National Burnaby Print Show in 1973, Graphex in 1975, 1976, and 1977, consultant for Imprint'76, and coordinator of the Canadian Printmaking Exhibition at the International Biennale of Graphic Art in Krakow, Poland in 1972.

 







  Eve Koch (1949 - 2001) - Upper Gallery

Eve Koch will be remembered for her innovative interpretation of photo-realism, which had won her the admiration of numerous art critics. Born in 1949 in Medicine Hat, Koch had eventually moved to Calgary in 1961. Here, she attended the University of Calgary and received her Bachelor's degree in Fine Arts (Painting and Lithography) in 1973. In 1975, she graduated from the University of Cincinnati, Ohio with a Master's degree in Fine Arts (Painting). From 1976-77, Eve taught painting at the Alberta College of Art in Calgary and, from 1986 until her death in 2001, she worked independently at her studio.

In her works, Koch took the aspect of realism from being a vehicle for social commentary into philosophically refined view of reality based on the artist's intuition and imagination. Said Koch, "… I wanted to use realism an 'art idea' for its own sake rather than as a vehicle for social comment or narrative. To use the figure, in itself highly emotionally charged, as subject matter outside of the confines of portraiture, poses special problems. I suppress the inherent romantic, expressive and metaphorical overtones. Not all remains suppressed by the viewer. There is a gap between who the meaning of the painting belongs to: artist or viewer. I believe a heightened realism widens this gap and I am working to further develop my illusionary skills. The more real object presented, the more compelled the viewer is to heighten meaning. Almost all subjective interpretation belongs to the viewer and the gap is bridged …".
  Koch also had a fondness for the classical realists such as Jan Vermeer van Delft, Anton van Dyck, or Mary Cassatt, and a lot of her work playfully reinterprets these masters. Eve's acrylic paintings each have a silken luminous surface, without a trace of canvas grain or paint texture. She called her technique the bell jar effect, because it gave the appearance of a blade-thin slice of reality kept under a vacuum in a jar. In her artist's statement Koch wrote that she developed her technique "… to virtually eliminate the painted surface, to deny the artist's touch. This strategy makes the works seem less like 3-dimensional fiction on flat surfaces, and more like convincingly concrete objects. There is no visible brush mark or texture. The paint itself is transformed into the image …".
 



Iron Lava Web Design email Copyright by Calgary Contemporary Arts Society