Skip to content

Hours and Hours (10 photos)

Guelph portrait painter exhibits his many faces

Three hours. Four hours. Five Hours. Six. Guelph artist Greg Denton paints by the hour.

The opening reception for the portrait painter’s exhibition Greg Denton: Hours happensThursday night, 7 p.m. at the Art Gallery of Guelph. The show is curated by Dawn Owen.

Denton, 53, has a somewhat obsessive drive to paint and draw the human face. Hours consists of 121 portraits, and 16 sketch books. 

The show includes 100 small portraits all hung together in a tight grouping, from his herculean 100 Portraits/100 Poppies project. The series was completed over a period of a few months in 2015, while he served as the City of Guelph’s artist in residence. The 100 faces all have a connection to local veterans of war.

From 2013 to this year, Denton completed a series of 21 larger portraits, the subjects all acquaintances of his, and people who had a few hours to spare.

The shortest sitting was three hours, the longest was 12, but most paintings took five hours to complete. They are arranged on the second floor exhibition space in order of duration.

While sitting on the floor of the gallery Tuesday, scanning the walls filled with his paintings, Denton said an exhibition is an opportunity for an artist to actually see and measure the overall result of their efforts.

He said he hadn’t looked at the portraits long and hard enough as a series to know quite what he thought of his achievement, but one thing struck him: The number of hours spent on the individual paintings did not seem to determine their level of completion.  

“I don’t think there is necessarily a relationship to the amount of labour and the amount of finesse or finish,” said Denton, who holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Guelph, and is known as both a visual artist and musician in the city. He is originally from Nova Scotia.

Portrait painting comes with a certain kind of challenge, he said. It is demanding, and that is why he is drawn to it. He considers himself an improvisational painter who works best from life.

Painting a portrait gives him an instant audience – the subject. There is a drive to get a good likeness, especially when his every move is being watched by the subject.

“These are people that I know, people that were available,” he said. “They are also people that I feel comfortable bringing into my home and studio, people I feel I am going to feel good spending some time with. They are perhaps people that I’ve known for some time, and have some admiration for.”

Among the subjects are art critic and educator Robert Enright, art dealer Renann Isaacs, musicians Ian Reid, Andy Hughes, the late Gary Wickizer (a.k.a. Mo’ Kauffey), and Nathan Coles, and painter Don Russell.

“I think of the paintings as this artifact that we are collaborating on,” he said. “It’s also about this kind of existential moment, this presence and interaction with the painting.”

In all of his portraits, Denton faces the canvas to the subject, so that the subject can see the progress being made. Each of the 21 larger portraits began on a gray background, with the nose of the subject precisely in the center of the canvas.

“Generally, in the history of portraiture, it is reserved as an emblem of prestige,” Denton added. “Usually the subject is going to be someone of note, either through wealth or achievement. I don’t think that’s what I’m doing with portraiture.”

Concurrent with Greg Denton: Hours, the gallery will host Mondes Bricoles, an ambitious group exhibit based on the art made from improvisation, constructing, or creating from materials or objects at hand – a kind of ‘making do’ with what is available.

As well, the multi-media installation Blood, Sweat, Tears will look at the labour of artistic production.

Openings for all three exhibitions happen Thursday night.


Comments

Verified reader

If you would like to apply to become a verified commenter, please fill out this form.




Rob O'Flanagan

About the Author: Rob O'Flanagan

Rob O’Flanagan has been a newspaper reporter, photojournalist and columnist for over twenty years. He has won numerous Ontario Newspaper Awards and a National Newspaper Award.
Read more