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Two decades of motorcycle trips inspire artist's vision of Canada (5 photos)

Things got hyper-real at yesterday's opening at the museum

Michael Glover’s Silent Expanse – A Cross Canada Exploration opened yesterday at the newly renovated Timmins Museum and National Exhibit Centre, and it was a most fitting celebration of Canada’s 150th year of existence.

Glover, who resides in Port Hope, Ont., produces vistas of the Canadian landscape using a technique that combines hyper-realism with tinges of surrealism.

Glover’s paintings, in oil, were made over several years based on a road trips he has taken across Canada.

“I started doing a series in 2002 with the most recent run in 2016,” Glover said. “Last, year after returning for a trip out west, I got restless so after a week at home, I drove to Cape Breton Island."

Some of Glover’s recent paintings reflect life along the Atlantic Ocean, such as his painting of boats and lobster traps.

But Glover’s vision of Canada includes scenes that moved him as he was driving through.

“I know I have passed something special when I take in a scene and I saw, wow, that’s amazing,” explained Glover of how he decides to paint from the many aspects of being on the road in Canada that he has observed in over a decade of travels.

As for his themes, Glover said he is moved by glimpses of disappearing Canada, the things that helped build this country, but now time and technology have rendered them useless.

“When I paint I am moved by things that once were vital to Canada, but now are fading, “Glover said.

In the collection, you will see Glover’s philosophy on display in his paintings of rusted farm vehicles in overgrown, uncultivated fields; silent grain elevators that have been abandoned; railway car hitches; abandoned railway round houses.

“Michael is attracted to the abandoned and isolated parts of the Canadian landscape, the rusted, the deserted, the unused and unwanted,” said a blurb in the accompanying program to Glover’s exhibition

Glover’s journeys led him to chronicle forgotten parts of Canada and the stories of the people that he meets along the way.

“Tonight, we are here to celebrate this new, wonderful exhibition by Michael Glover and he has been doing a number of paintings that reflect on Canada, but the abandoned pieces like what we may see along the road way but don’t pay attention to, but Michael’s paintings have now brought them to our attention, “said Karen Bachmann, the director and curator of the Timmins Museum.

“Michael’s exhibition launches our soft opening of the Timmins Museum,” said Karen Bachmann, the Director/Curator of the Timmins Museum. “It’s the first show since we re-opened on Monday and we will be following up with the Northern Ontario Artist Association (NOAA) Juried Art Exhibition on Saturday afternoon.”

“Michael’s paintings are very, very distinct,” said Coun. Michael Doody, who is chair of the Timmins Museum board. “Michael has travelled from coast to coast to coast and it is certainly nice to bring back the images and share them with the people of Timmins.”

Michael Glover’s exhibition at the Timmins Museum runs from September 15 to October 29.


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Frank Giorno

About the Author: Frank Giorno

Frank Giorno worked as a city hall reporter for the Brandon Sun; freelanced for the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star. He is the past editor of www.mininglifeonline.com and the newsletter of the Association of Italian Canadian Writers.
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