"Nothing is more abstract than reality."
~ Giorgio Morandi
My new series is titled, "Big Screen TV." I'm using my grid technique to highlight the digital. These days oil paintings often compete for wall space with big screen TVs and this series plays with that reality.
In my series, "Grid," I paint square by square, row by row. The painting may appear digitized but is meticulously hand painted. I've always used the grid to scale up my photos but leaving traces of the process creates a tension between the image and the squares of tone and colour which are reassembled by the eye.
My series, “Mythology,” is a development of my book still lifes. As with my flower paintings, I reduce and simplify in order to focus on a single image. I’m looking at magazine covers as a contemporary subject, trying to unite the tradition of Holbein and Rembrandt with an exploration of the fashion and celebrity culture of today. The subjects in my paintings are not unlike the people John Singer Sargent would have been painting a hundred years ago.
I consider these portraits to be still lifes because they depict the magazine covers stripped of text, leaving only the title or barcode to indicate their source. I’m making a painting of a photograph rather than a conventional portrait. Gerhard Richter said he was trying to make a painting as exciting as a photograph and I’m extending this idea with the found subject of the fashion magazine.
These works wouldn’t be possible without the internet which allows one to search the globe to find images that have disappeared from the newsstands years or decades ago. In this way, the paintings represent the classic theme of memento mori or vanitas, reminding one of the passage of time and the fleeting nature of reality.
I began thinking about a previous series I'd worked on where I painted more traditional book still lifes. In the same way that I wanted to pare down the traditional flower still life to a bold, single bloom, I also wanted to just look at a single book. After painting several book covers from our personal library, I came upon some old magazines on our shelves, and treated them in a similar way. With the magazines, I removed the text advertising the contents of the magazine and give priority to the model on the cover. I want to look beyond the advertising and captions such as "The Real Reason You're Not Losing Weight" and "Age Appropriate Denim" and see the person instead.
I’m interested in the layers of transformations – from the transformation of the model, to the photoshopped image, which then becomes a ubiquitous image seen in grocery store aisles and on coffee tables. Unlike the mass produced glossy magazine cover, paint is a kind of skin, a unique surface.
The use of 'found' imagery echoes Warhol's use of tabloid photographs of Liz, Marilyn and Elvis and also the early paintings of Gerhard Richter who also employed the strategy of using newspaper images as his source material.
AWARDS
2007 Alberta Foundation for the Arts Projects Grant
1996 Alberta Foundation for the Arts Projects Grant
1990 Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant
1989 Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant
LECTURES, RESIDENCIES, and HONOURS
2015 Shaw Communications has named a room in Shaw Court, Calgary, Alberta, The Robert Lemay Room
2014 Inaugural Artist in Residence, Graceland University, Iowa, November 2014
2007 Alberta Society of Artists, September 13, 2007
COLLECTIONS
Alberta Art Foundation,; Alberta Energy; Alberta Treasury Branch; Bennet, Jones, Verchere; Canada Council Art Bank; Canadian Embassy: Beijing, China; Canberra, Australia; Chevron Oil; Cliff Lede Wineries, Yountville, California; Edmonton City Hall; Foreign Affairs; Graceland University (Lamoni, Iowa); Interprovincial Pipeline; Lethbridge Regional Hospital; Norcen Resources; Ocelot Energy; Shaw Communications; Suncor Energy; Westin Hotels
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2016 "Iconic Women," Shayne Gallery, Montreal
2016 "Grid," Wallace Galleries, Calgary
2015 Robert Lemay: 30 Years, Douglas Udell Gallery, Edmonton
2013 "Flower," Douglas Udell Gallery, Edmonton
2011 Douglas Udell Gallery, Edmonton
2010 "In a Narrow Space," Shayne Gallery, Montreal
2009 Wallace Galleries, Calgary
2008 "Calm Things," Douglas Udell Gallery, Edmonton.
2007 Shayne Gallery, Montreal
2006 Wallace Galleries, Calgary
2005 Douglas Udell Gallery, Edmonton
2004 Shayne Gallery, Montreal
2003 Douglas Udell Gallery, Edmonton
2002 Shayne Gallery, Montreal
Wallace Galleries, Calgary
2001 Douglas Udell Gallery, Edmonton
2000 Wallace Galleries, Calgary
1998 Hollander York Gallery, Toronto
Douglas Udell Gallery, Vancouver
1997 Wallace Galleries, Calgary
1996 Douglas Udell Gallery, Edmonton
1995 Hollander York Gallery, Toronto
Wallace Galleries, Calgary
1994 Douglas Udell Gallery, Vancouver
Wallace Galleries, Calgary
Hollander York Gallery, Toronto
1993 Douglas Udell Gallery, Edmonton
1992 Woltjen/Udell, Edmonton
1991 Wallace Galleries, Calgary
1989 Woltjen/Udell, Edmonton
1988 Woltjen/Udell, Vancouver
1987 Woltjen/Udell, Edmonton
GROUP EXHIBITIONS (SELECTED)
2011 “For the Love of Art,” Wallace Galleries, Calgary, Alberta
1999 “New Talent Invitational” Denise Bibro Fine Arts, New York City
“Alberta: Six Degrees of Separation,” Prairie Regional Art Gallery
Grand Prairie, AB
1998 “Multiple Realities,” Muttart Public Art Gallery, Calgary
1997 “Still Life," McMullen Art Gallery, Edmonton
BIBLIOGRAPHY
2016 Fashion Magazine, "Picture Perfect: Robert Lemay's Artistic Take on Magazines." May 2016.
2016 Where Calgary Magazine, "Grid." May/June 2016.
2014 Avant Magazine, Interview. Volume V, Issue 2, 2014.
2010 Canadian Interviews. “The Moment of Astonishment: Interview with Robert Lemay.” canadianinterviews.com.
2010 Ryan, Janice. “Oil Paintings Animate Common Objects,” Edmonton Journal, Friday, June 17, 2011.
2009 Notebook Magazine. V.3, Issue 8. “Shawna & Robert Lemay: Calm Things.”
2008 Bouchard, Gilbert. “Lemay Reinterprets Iconic Art in his Neutral Realist Style,” Edmonton Journal, Friday, April 11, 2008.
2006 Bouchard, Gilbert. “Alberta: What is Visible,” Galleries West Magazine.
2005 Bouchard, Gilbert. “Lemay Breathes New Life into Form”, Edmonton Journal. Oct 7, G8.
2005 Lemay, Shawna. “Precarious”, Artichoke. Summer, 2005, pp. 38-45.
2003 Kellog, Alan. “Catching Up With the Beautiful People”, Edmonton Journal.
2001 Bouchard, Gilbert. “Real Life Frozen in Still-Life Mastery”, Edmonton Journal. May 4, E14
1999 Gustafson, Paula. “Robert Lemay at Douglas Udell Gallery,” Asian Art News, March/April 1999
1998 Image reproduced. Alberta Views, Spring Vol. 1, No.2, pp. 15.
1996 Mandel, Charles. “Still-Life Showing so Conventional it’s Uncongenial”, Edmonton Journal.
January 25, C5.
1993 “Time is Frozen in a Painter’s Still Life Studies”, Edmonton Journal. December.
1992 “Artist Follows Cezanne’s Example”, Edmonton Journal.
1989 Beauchamp, Elizabeth. “Summer Candid Pictures Can Lift Winter Mood”,Edmonton Journal. December 2, D4.