Jay Belmore
Artist
Artist Statement
My abstract paintings encourage a visual exploration that hinges on landscape and habitats with a fleeting nod to science. In recent work, I am attempting to transcribe the vision of other organisms as they look out onto our world. These organic forms are both revealed and concealed amidst layers of more geometric structured forms. The surface of the canvas is activated by the thick impasto and then is controlled or reigned in by the geometric forms. My paintings reveal themselves to me as I paint and are often reflections of nature, habitats and memories. By using a combination of these references that are never allowed to fully manifest into recognizable objects, I attempt to maintain an open-ended dialogue with the viewer.
Painting has always been a good medium for me to experiment with the tensions between the real and the abstract, chaos and order, what we perceive and that, which truly exists. The texture and complexity of the surfaces often represent something active, unknown, while the geometric suggest structure and the quantifiable. Always remaining slightly detached from the outcome, I often work on a couple of paintings simultaneously. This way of working enables me to remove the preciousness from the work, opening the door for a new theme to emerge. I allow the surface, colour and composition to navigate me. This permits the direction to become more of a discovery rather than something predetermined.
Biography
Jay graduated from the Alberta College of Art and attended the Illustrators Workshop in New York. Galleries in Ottawa and Calgary and Toronto have exhibited Jay’s paintings and his work can be found in private and corporate collections in Canada and the United States.
Jay is the director of Muse Gallery in Toronto.
Education
Graduated in 1982 from the Alberta College of Art and Design - SAIT
Illustrators Workshop 1981 - Connecticut, USA
CV
2023 Own the Light, Muse Gallery, Toronto, ON
2016 Group Show, Muse Gallery, Toronto, ON
2015 Group Show, Muse Gallery, Toronto, ON
2014 Featured Artist, Gibson Fine Art, Calgary, AB
Group Show, Muse Gallery, Toronto, ON
2013 Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition, Toronto, ON
Solo Show, Sanctuary, Muse Gallery, Toronto, ON
2011 Group Show, Gibson Fine Art, Calgary, AB
2010 Queen West Art Crawl, Toronto, ON
Group show, Muse Gallery, Toronto, ON
Creative Art Gems, Art Auction, Toronto, ON
2009 Group show, Muse Gallery, Toronto, ON
2008 Solo show, Distant Communications
Muse Gallery, Toronto, ON