Brief Introduction:

Watercolourist: Painter of Boreal Canada

Alan J.T. Bain paints the northern landscape, the vast silent lands of the Canadian boreal forest. Peace and solitude attract him. Long a canoeist and outdoorsman, Alan has travelled extensively, as a geologist and artist, across the Pre-cambrians of Ontario, Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador searching out the distant and untouched vistas of boreal Canada.

Many of these locations are won only by hard work; by miles of walking, by steep climbs, by bouncing hours over bush roads in a battered 4-wheel drive, or by long paddles to water locations that only a canoe can reach.

"You have to feel with your feet what you paint with a brush."

Training:

McGill (B.Sc. Geology), McGill (B.Ed. Admin.), Boston University (M.A.)

In 1972 Alan joined a watercolour class at the Ottawa School of Art with Morton Baslaw CSPWC as instructor. Alan continued with Jack Reid CSPWC and Danis Meizajs CSPWC. Gradually, as Alan learned the technicalities of watercolour, his love of the bush, of canoe and the open road distilled into his landscapes and has since emerged as a distinctive style of outdoor landscape painting.

Career:

Alan has exhibited his paintings almost yearly since 1980.

In 1983 Alan became a Fellow of the Ottawa Watercolour Society. In 1996 he was elected to the Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour.

CSPWC is an elected society, including all of the famous watercolorists from the fabric of Canadian art. The Society dedicates itself to, "...cultivate and encourage excellence in the medium of watercolour..."

Alan served as CSPWC Director for Eastern Ontario. In 1998, as Director of CSPWC and President of OWS, Alan organized the CSPWC/OWS Watercolour Symposium in Ottawa.

Alan’s paintings have enjoyed international acceptance. His paintings have been accepted and displayed by Midland Walwyn, Toronto Harbour Castle, ScotiaBank, TD Bank, and Merrill Lynch and Mitel. He is a regular artist in several commercial galleries. His paintings can be found in hundreds of private collections across Canada, United States, Scotland, and South Africa.

A special presentation of one of Alan’s paintings was made to retiring Ontario Premier Bill Davis. In 1998 Alan was invited to place a painting, as one of six representitives from Canada, in the Third International Biennial Exhibition of Watercolour at EL MUSEO NACIONAL DE LA ACUARELA in Mexico City. In 2004 a Bain landscape was presented to Hon. Peter McKay, M.P., Minister for Foreign Affairs.

Awards:

• Cornwall Gallery Society, Juried Exhibition, Purchase Award
• Upper Canada Village Juried Exhibition, Purchase Award
• Massena Artists’ Association - Juried Exhibition, Best of Show.
• Morton Baslaw Award - OWS Juried Exhibition
• President’s Award - Ottawa Watercolour Society, Juried Exhibition,
• Juror’s Award - Ottawa Watercolour Society, Juried Exhibition
• Ottawa Art Assoc. Juried Exhibition, Honorable Mention
• ECOAA Juried Exhibition, Belleville, Honorable Mention
• Ottawa Art Assoc., Juried exhibition, Honorable Mention
• ECOAA Juried Exhibition, Ottawa, Honorable Mention

Alan is married to Audrey, an artist and retired Gallery Director. Together they have enjoyed travelling Canada in search of painting places. Both are keen outdoor painters.

Artist Statement:

I paint the Boreal Canada; a land incredibly rich in diversity, a constant offering of pristine wilderness. my paintings are both a recollection and a reminiscence. Since most of them are painted "plein air" I like to think of them as visual tape recordings. With them, even months later, I’m immersed once more in their surroundings, all the senses register, the wind and sun, the sounds of nature, the mood I felt. My paintings are a distillations of my years of travel, through my paintings I reminisce again with a land that talks to me of the ageless and constant lure of our northwoods.

View Alan J.T. Bain CSPWC OWS's work in the "Call of the Wild" Canadian Wilderness Art Show April/May, 2008.