Description

pp. 144, full colour illustrations of the art works, “Alex Colville: Return builds upon the extensive body of literature and exhibitions about one of Canada’s most treasured artists. Beginning with Embarkation (1994), this book showcases Alex Colville’s paintings and prints from the last ten years, placing them in the broad context of his life’s work. It suggests that his creative process has, since the beginning, constituted a personal mode of witnessing, an essential visual testimony in response to trauma. Alex Colville was a Canadian war artist during wwii and was one of three painters admitted to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp as it was being liberated. To express the unimaginable chaos, Colville sought order, which he found in an artistic style defined as “magic realism.” In the shadow of September 11, and in the present conflict in the Middle East, Colville’s art resonates with a renewed urgency and potency. His work contains complexly coded images that help bring order, coherence and closure to the disorder and chaos of trauma. Alex Colville: Return is a not only a stunning collection of paintings and prints by one of Canada’s premier artists, but a testimony to the resilience of the human spirit.” signed by Alex Colville on title page