Starting July 17, the Art Gallery of Sudbury is host to Cities: John Hartman tour, organized and circulated by the Tom Thomson Art Gallery of Owen Sound. A public reception will be held tonight at 6:30 p.m. and artist remarks at 6:45 p.m.
This exhibition, sponsored by Scotiabank Group, will remain
on view through to Sept. 6. The artist will be present Sept. 6
for an artist talk from 1 to 3 pm.
 
In 2007, Scotiabank Group celebrated its 175th anniversary. To
mark the occasion, the bank selected to sponsor the Cities:
John Hartman project as part of its commitment as a corporate
patron of contemporary Canadian Art.
Born in 1950 in Midland, Ontario, John Hartman studied Fine Art at McMaster University. Over the past 25 years, he has exhibited his paintings internationally including exhibitions in Canada, Great Britain, Denmark and Germany.
His paintings and prints are included in numerous public, corporate and private collections in Canada and around the world. The artist is represented in Canada by Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto.
John Hartman has painted cities both large and small, from Parry Sound, Port Severn and Owen Sound on the shores of Georgian Bay, to London, New York, Toronto, Montreal and Glasgow.
The artist is particularly interested in cities that are also ports. His paintings of imagined aerial perspectives look down on the intricate contours of the urban space where towers, cranes and docks meet the open blue of an ocean, lake or river.
"The water reflects the sun and creates an intensity of light above these places. This light in the sky is so different in feeling from the material density of the cities themselves, but both are full of possibilities for painting," wrote the artist.
Cities is accompanied by a full colour, hard cover book published by Altitude Publishing. The book includes texts by curator Stuart Reid, Tom Thomson Art Gallery, Noah Richler, author of This is my Country, What's Yours: A Literary Atlas of Canada, and includes a foreword by Dennis Reid, chief curator of the Art Gallery of Ontario.
