Alf Crossley in the Vanishing Landscapes of BC

Artist Searches Out Natural Scenery Left Unspoilt by Human Tracks

Aug 21, 2008

Will global warming, rampant development, and decades of resource extraction and exploitation make a tabla rasa of the landscapes BC artists paint & draw? (Part 3 of 3)

Canadian Abstract Impressionist-Expressionist, Alf Crossley, is not charged with the imperative of recording BC's natural landscape before nihilistic forces like environmental degradation, urban encroachment, and the pine beetle finally level it, as though it's an obligation of landscape painters. Just as these things cut swathes across the last sections of Canadian wilderness, however, they also obliterate the wealth which nature's diverse visual language provides---language which inspires and sustains imagination and creativity.

"Once I discover a place that has all the qualities of a good painting spot, I tend to return to it to paint. So, one step ahead of the bulldozer, I keep on the lookout for good locations before they are destroyed by the heavy imprint of mankind." Crossley addressed the practical considerations in January of 2008.

"Often these little sanctuaries are eventually blocked off, I suppose because of vandalism or the dumping of garbage. How a person can dump rude human waste over moss-covered bedrock or down into a sparkling, pristine hillside stream is beyond my understanding."

Disappearing Landscapes

Setting is essential to Crossley’s art, yet many places he has painted have disappeared. Crossley has lived in or near the Kootenays almost all of his life, traveling out to experience new landscapes and settings from time to time, yet always returning, always re-immersing himself. So it is with his art.

His brush-styles change subtly as he develops and adds visual elements, but they are rhythmic and cyclical, returning to basic themes rooted in his own nature and reflected in nature around him.

The pieces themselves are never finished per se---even when the art is cohesive, whole and “finished” in terms of its design elements---because they are wound together with a land that constantly changes and evolves, just as he does. Because his landscapes are literally works in progress until the moment the final varnish is applied, they are intricately tied to the land.

“I like to locate myself in different environments and experience the conscious and subconscious response to the stimulation. The work is an attempt to blend the worlds of the conscious and the intuitive," Alf wrote in 2003. "I put the drawings aside, usually not referring to them, and commence painting. (All my gear is set up beforehand.) I don't know ahead of time what the image will be until the brush starts across the canvas. The form grows without forcing."

"Except sometimes the force must be forced," he amends. "There is a fine line between chaos and art, with the only thing keeping it from tipping over being experience."

It isn't merely that Crossley's education at the Vancouver School of Art, Leighton Center near Calgary, and Emma Lake Artists Workshop in Saskatchewan, have schooled him so well in the Canadian landscape tradition, although it has. Nor that his four decades of experience and exhibition in the field affected his artist's way of perception, although they have.

What governs the masterful placement of Crossley's brushmarks, the dissolution of solvent applied over paint, or the opaque applications of thick impasto over translucent washes is also affected by the distance of memory and the excoriating path of human destruction across nature.

The copyright of the article Alf Crossley in the Vanishing Landscapes of BC in Landscape Painting is owned by Simone Keiran. Permission to republish Alf Crossley in the Vanishing Landscapes of BC in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.