Artist Information
Steve Mennie
Born: Revelstoke, BC
Price range: $400-$8500
Steve Mennie shared with us at his opening reception of “Reasonable Facsimiles and Unintended Consequences” in 2019 a little about his work.
”...At the age of 74, I realize how long I have been beavering away at this…”
”...I always been intrigued and confounded by the reality that we are enmeshed in. A place of immense and miraculous beauty paired with unimaginable carnage, destruction and suffering. There is in operation a mighty force. A relentless logic that folds and mixes where we are both end products and ingredients, and then we die. This absurdity fascinated me and lead me as an artist to seek out those images that reflected this strange and alienating situation.”
HERE is a link to the YouTube video.
Although I’ve been involved in my practice as a painter for some thirty- odd years, I’ve never been completely successful in determining just what got me started and further, just what it is that I’m up to.
At some level my work is a response to the mystery of being here (wherever ‘here’ is) and in the beginning, I worked in what would be called a ‘high realist’ style. My interest was primarily to document and to perhaps reveal the essential limitedness of our knowledge by constructing ‘real’’ and banal scenes or contexts in a very cool and detached manner. Although quite natural and possible, the resulting images were meant to be difficult to ‘read’ and this difficulty would point up the ambiguous nature of reality. I worked much as a magician would work at practicing a magic trick or illusion. I was careful to hide the means used to create the final work…to achieve a smoothness of surface and an objectivity which was not to be ‘contaminated’ by any ‘painterly’ trace of the medium or the artist’s subjective feelings.
At some point, I switched from acrylics to oil and began to paint “en plaine aire” landscapes where I became more involved with the plastic possibilities of the medium itself. The more I worked with this more expressionistic approach, the more I became enamored of the medium and soon I was having difficulty distinguishing just where paint ended and image began. The next step became inevitable; I suppose…working only with the expressive qualities of paint itself and leaving ‘recognizable image’ behind. I have yielded much conscious or direct control in my present practice and as a result am more open to what is disclosed or revealed to me through the process of working.
So now, in a time where we all seem to be involved in relentless and near-hysterical “doing” I think of my artistic practice in terms of Heidegger’s “being-in-the-world” and the resulting works as, to quote Mark Kingwell, “slabs of existence”. These slabs are not pieces of equipment subordinate to the concept of “usefulness” but are instead openings or spaces in which we are called to remember what it means to be.
1945 Born in Revelstoke, British Columbia
1968 Completed studies at Ontario College of Art, Toronto Ontario
1968-70 Worked as freelance illustrator in Toronto
EXHIBITIONS
2015 Oh, Canada/New York: a cultural exchange and dialogue, Westbeth Gallery, New York City, NY
2015 “Plein Air & River(s) Run”, Chazou Gallery, Kamploops BC
2015 “Appearing and Fading”, group show, Lake Country Art Gallery, Lake Country BC
2014 “Beyond Land Escape(s)”, group show, Chazou Gallery, Kamloops BC
2013 Pulled (A Print Show), group show, Headbones Gallery, Vernon, BC
2013 “Winter Salon”, group show, Chazou Gallery, Kamloops BC
2011 “The Mechanics of Abstraction”, group show, Salmon Arm Art Gallery, Salmon Arm BC
2010 Pulled (A Print Show), group show, Headbones Gallery, Vernon, BC
2002 “Homemade Show and Sale”, 2-person show with Jen Dyck, Tappen Gallery, Tappen BC
2001 Salmon Arm Art Gallery, Salmon Arm B.C., duo exhibition
“Co-Incidence”
2000 John Ramsay Gallery, Vancouver B.C., solo exhibition ” Recent Work
Porch Furniture Series”
1999 John Ramsay Gallery, Vancouver B.C., solo exhibition “Recent Work”
1999 Edmonton Art Gallery, Edmonton Alberta, group show ” The Future
Ain’t What It Used to Be: The Victoria School Exhibition Project”
1999 Vernon Art Gallery, Vernon, B. C. solo exhibition. ” Domestic Exotica”
1998 Salmon Arm Art Gallery, Salmon Arm, B. C. solo exhibition
1998 Kamloops Art Gallery, Kamloops, B.C. group show, “Home Base”
1998 Headbones Gallery, Vernon, B.C. solo exhibition, “New Paintings”
1998 Vernon Public Art Gallery, Vernon, B.C. group show, “Hockey Night in Canada”
1997 Oasis Gallery, Kamloops, B.C. solo exhibition, “Isolated Incidence”
1996 Langham Cultural Centre, Kaslo, B.C., solo serigraphic exhibition
1996 Surrey Art Gallery, Surrey, B.C., group show, “The Grass Menagerie”
1996 Kamloops Public Art Gallery, Kamloops, B.C., solo exhibition “Fish Princess”
1995 Headbones Gallery, Vernon, B.C. solo exhibition, “Following Directions”
1994 Centre d’Exposition du Vieux Palais, St. Jerome,Quebec, solo exhibition
“Following Directions”
1993 New Works Gallery, University of Illinois at Chicago, group show “Visible
Language”
1993 Amelia Douglas Gallery, Douglas College, New Westminster, B.C. solo
exhibition “Following Directions”
1993 Smash Gallery, Vancouver, B.C., solo exhibition “Following
Directions”
1992 Kamloops Public Art Gallery, Kamloops, B.C. solo exhibition “Following
Directions”
1991 Oasis Gallery, Kamloops B.C., group show “Little Picture Show”
1988 Kamloops Public Art Gallery, Kamloops B.C. group anniversary show
1987 Grace Gallery, Vancouver, B.C. solo exhibition
1986 Bonnie Kagan Gallery,Toronto, Ontario, solo exhibition
1984 Burnaby Art Gallery, Burnaby, B.C. solo exhibition
1984 Kamloops Public Art Gallery, Kamloops, B.C. group show “A Fish Story”
1983 Graffiti Gallery, Vancouver, B.C. solo exhibition
1980 Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, B.C., group show “Stolen Moments”
1980 2nd Biannual Canadian Print and Drawing Council, group show
1980 Hett Gallery, Edmonton, Alberta, solo exhibition
1979 Devooght Galleries, Vancouver, B.C. solo exhibition
1979 Burnaby Art Gallery, Burnaby, B.C. group show “Kids and Cows”
COMMISSIONS-AWARDS
1970 Awards of merit from Toronto/Montreal Art Directors Club
1973 Commissioned by Canada Post to design postage stamps
commemorating 100th anniversary of birth of Nellie McClung
1974 Commissioned by Canada Post to design series of postage stamps
commemorating 100th anniversary of postal service in Canada
1990 Received Explorations Grant from Canada Council
COLLECTIONS
Weyerhauser Canada Ltd.
B. C. Telephone
B.C. Lottery Corporation
Bronfman Collection, Montreal, Quebec
Connor Clarke and Company, Toronto Ontario
Ernst and Young, Toronto Ontario
Burnaby Art Gallery, Burnaby B. C.
Kamloops Art Gallery, Kamloops B. C.
Edmonton Art Gallery, Edmonton Alberta
Westin Hotels, Whistler B. C.
Prestige Inns, Salmon Arm B. C
PUBLICATIONS-BIBLIOGRAPHY
2000 Asian Art News, September/October
2000 Artichoke Magazine , Spring 2000
1996 Vancouver Sun, review of books, December 14
1994 New Art Examiner, January
1993 The Royal City Record, September 22
1993 Vancouver Sun, September25
1993 Vancouver Sun, February 6
1990 CFJC Television, Kamloops B.C.-“Print or not to Print”
1987 Western Living
1987 Art Post Magazine, February/March
1987 CFJC Television, Kamloops B.C. - “PROBE” - Documentary on artist’s work
1984 Western Living Magazine, February
1982 Vancouver Sun, December 1
1982 Vancouver Sun, September 24
1980 Vancouver Magazine, April
1980 Images, Contemporary Canadian Realism
1979 Vanguard Magazine, August