Local artist Bob Scurfield was in New York City recently to host an exhibition of his work at the Agora Gallery.
Bob Scurfield at the Agora Gallery.
What a coup for a local artist.
Like many accomplished artists Bob has a website showcasing his work. It was this website that attracted the attention of the Agora gallery located in the fashionable Chelsea art district in the heart of Manhattan.
With a mandate to provide opportunities for artists entering the global art market, the gallery put on a month long exhibition called Figuratively Speaking which featured emerging landscape artists. Twenty three artists from all over the world were invited to exhibit. Bob was one of three Canadians chosen.
A principal in his own human resource consulting company, Bob developed an interest in art many years ago when he was on a social committee that was planning an event with an art theme. Yet despite his success he tells me that he still doesn’t consider himself artistic and that it is an ongoing learning process. A process he has been honing at several workshops with notable contemporaries.
His work has exhibited locally at Café Carlo and Mona Lisa and he has an annual summer showing at Victoria Beach where he and his wife are cottagers.
But this was his first major exhibition and at a prestigious New York gallery no less.
Bob Scurfield with some of his works.
Born in Tisdale, Saskatchewan, Bob has spent most of his adult life in Winnipeg and Toronto and his prairie roots are evident in his pictures. Especially lakeside scenes from Lake Winnipeg and Lake of the Woods.
The Grand Canal in Venice by Bob Scurfield.
His work has shifted from watercolour to acrylic on canvas as his artistic style has developed and his bright vibrant paintings represent the things and places he has experienced.
Loose brush strokes capture light dappled on the forest floor as leaves turn to red and orange. Long spindly shadows crystallized in paint across the canvas.
I recognized one of his pictures of the Grand Canal in Venice and there are several other European street scenes that have inspired him during his travels.
Horses and sports are also a common theme for Bob, especially racehorses, a passion of his daughter and of course hockey players. He is a keen Jets fan.
Bob however is not the only artist in his Oxford Street household as his wife Rosemary is also an active artist. Her medium though is hot glass, colourful pieces formed in moulds and fired in a kiln.
But it is Bob’s work, especially his landscapes that are capturing the essence and majesty of Western Canada and marketing it to the world via the Big Apple art scene.
Bob Scurfield work Old House on the Prairies.
