• Stormy Sky
  • 36" X 57.5", acrylic on canvas
  • Jim Stokes

Artist Information

Jim Stokes

Born: Grande Prairie, AB, 1959
Price range: $950-$5000

In making and exhibiting my work since 1979, I have explored many approaches to making art. I continue to draw the figure with energy and enthusiasm. I have explored printmaking and for the last 6 years have done a great many experimental sculptures. The main constant of my work, has been the Alberta landscape. Almost all my exhibitions have presented paintings trying to extend this tradition of painting and interpreting the world around us. The wild places, the neat “tucked in” sections of agricultural land and the rolling folds of the prairie parkland. With this has been an obsession with the arch of sky and cloud above. Clouds the weather offer an endless subject with forms motifs that are simple, minimal and abstract to the wild and rococo! I find a lot of joy and pleasure in painting.

Jim Stokes is an artist from Grande Prairie, Alberta. He has been painting and showing his work for 23 years in Alberta and across Canada. His many solo exhibitions have been for the most part a large on going series of painterly landscapes.

Fluid and gestural paint handling is played off against a sharp sense of light in the distance. Less known have been a series of interiors, a continuing group of figurative works, and many experimental prints and works on paper. Made with fairly traditional media, paint on canvas and paper as well as distressed wood panels, these works are frankly celebratory. The emotion from a place, a time of day, or some fragment of nature, has a rich resonance. I try to balance this with the influence of abstraction. All over mark making and the material nature of painting are important as well.

EDUCATION: Primarily self-taught, influenced by Jack Chambers & Dorothy Knowles.

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS:

2016 Scott Gallery, Edmonton, AB

2014 Alberta Requiem, Wallace Galleries, Calgary, AB

2012 Blue Notes & Stormy Weather, Scott Gallery, Edmonton, AB

2012 Journey, Prairie Gallery, Grande Prairie, AB

2008 Scott Gallery, Edmonton, AB

2006 Scott Gallery, Edmonton, AB

2003 Muse Gallery Grande Prairie, AB

2002 Prairie Gallery, Grande Prairie, AB

2001 La Clarte Dieu, Quebec City, QC

1998 Prairie Gallery, Grande Prairie, AB

1998 Unique Gallery, Grand Prairie, AB

1996 West End Gallery, Edmonton, AB

1996 Prairie Gallery, Grande Prairie, AB

1995 Wallace Galleries, Calgary, AB

1994 Unique Gallery, Grande Prairie, AB

1993 Unique Gallery, Grande Prairie, AB

1992 Wallace Galleries, Calgary, AB

1992 Prairie Gallery, Grande Prairie, AB

1990 Unique Gallery, Grande Prairie, AB

1989 Wallace Galleries, Calgary, AB

1988 Prairie Gallery, Grande Prairie, AB

1987 West End Galleryl, Edmonton, AB

1986 Picture Perfect Gallery, Grande Prairie, AB

1985 Prairie Gallery, Grande Prairie, AB

1981 Prairie Gallery, Grande Prairie, AB

1979 Prairie Gallery, Grande Prairie, AB

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

1996 Group Exhibition, Wallace Galleries, Calgary, AB

1995 Group Exhibition, Unique Gallery, Grande Prairie, AB

1989 “Alberta Drawing”, Edmonton Art Gallery, Edmonton, AB

1988 “Prairie Scapes”, Petley Jones Gallery, Vancouver, AB

“The Big Canvas”, West End Gallery, Edmonton, AB

1987 Group Exhibition, Wallace Galleries, Calgary, AB

“Recent Acquisitions”, McMullen Gallery, Edmonton, AB

l986 “Parallels & Affinities”, Muttart Gallery, Calgary, AB

SELECTED COLLECTIONS

 

Alberta Foundation of the Arts

The Art Gallery of Alberta

The Art Gallery of Grande Prairie

FirstEnergy Inc

Haywood Securities

Mackie Research Capital

Jarvis Engineering

Prairie Gallery Lion Business Machines

City of Grande Prairie Stuart Olson

 

Queen Elizabeth II Hospital Parlee McLaws