2012

Well, another year has slipped through our fingers and another one awaits us in the wings. All hail 2012, the year of many changes to be. What will you change in your life? Me you ask, what will I change? Good question!

Stay tuned to find out!

Margie and I wish everyone a great year, stay well and stay in touch.

WAR

Thanks to my good friend Joe Santos I’ve begun a new series of work about WAR, specifically The Great Wars of WWI and WWII. Joe has been instrumental in lifting this series from the ground and giving it some wings.

A while back we were talking about what was next for me and my work and I was uncertain what the future held. He suggested doing something about war. Now, as it stands I’ve been wanting to do something in this arena for years but I knew how daunting a task this would be and kind of shied away from it. Well, after some much-needed encouragement from Joe………..it’s begun!

After some exhausting research and a visit to the War Museum in Ottawa I concluded I was right all along, this IS going to be the most difficult project I’ve ever undertaken. You see, I believe for most of us, war stirs up many emotions and it’s hard to track it down from one direction. For me, war has always been about COURAGE. What courage it must have taken to go ‘Up and over’ into a hail of shrapnel or step off that Landing Craft onto the beaches of Normandy as bullets whizzed by all around you. Anybody remember the first twenty minutes of ‘Saving Private Ryan’?

It took some time to wrap my head around the task at hand, so in true Lorimer fashion I decided to dig a trench. WWI was fought in the trenches, so let’s see what it was like to be there, if only in make-believe. The land I live on is 100% Canadian shield, which means bedrock, so I asked my good friend Steve Anderson (Margie’s brother) to come over with his back-hoe and lend me a hand. Steve dug several test holes before we finally got ground that was yielding. He dug a 40′ trench about three feet deep before we encountered bedrock. The trenches of WWI were more like 5-6 feet deep, so I had my work cut out for me. With spade in hand I began to raise the walls.

It took a couple of days before I managed to erect a trench I deemed suitable for my purposes. Next, I needed to dress it up to replicate WWI trench, so I rummaged around and located some props. With the trench beginning to take on an authentic feel I now needed to gather some army gear, so off to Toronto I went.

When I lived in Toronto ten years ago there were army surplus stores everywhere downtown, not anymore. I had to go all the way to the west end of town to find one but sadly they didn’t have anything from WWI. In fact, finding any authentic army wear was proving to be next to impossible. It’s only been a hundred years, I mean surely somewhere, someone must have something? Nope, nothing. So again I had to improvise.

Now I needed a model to photograph in my new trench . I tried shooting myself for a couple of days but that was proving to be more difficult than it was worth, so I turned to Margaret. She was down with garbing herself up in costume and being my ever faithful stand-in. Yup, that’s dear old Margie in the photo. God love her!

And so it’s begun my friends, the long arduous path of WAR.

Stay tuned!

 

OMO Update

Hello All,

Me again. After taking a much needed break from painting, it’s time to get back on the horse…….. but first a quick update:

OMO, by all accounts, was very successful. The opening in Oakville back in July was attended by many loyal followers and friends. Although there were no sales on that night we have since sold 7 paintings and I couldn’t be more pleased with the results. Thanks to all who attended and especially to those who purchased a painting.

The show finished in Oakville at the end of the summer and the remaining 10 paintings have since been installed at Gallery Artplus in Belleville. The opening was back on the 13th of October. No sales here as of yet but the show will be hanging until the 6th of November so get out there and have a look if you haven’t already.

I have started a new series of work and I think you will be surprised with the direction, but more on that later. Stay tuned!!

 

 

OMO is Almost Here!

Hello Loyal Followers!

Only 5 days to go before OMO and I’m sure everyone is counting down the days as if the apocalypse was near. Well, I am at least. I realize it’s holiday season and many of you will be at the cottage somewhere but for those of you finding yourselves with no place to go…………now there is hope.

Please join me and Margie for the opening of OMO: A Lost World at Artspace Oakville on Friday night starting at 7:00pm. See Invite below.

Artspace is located at 128 Reynolds St. Oakville Ont., 416 908 9540

Don’t worry if you can”t make it on Friday as the show will be running until the 29th of August.

OMO Invite[3]

OMO…. GET READY!

Omo is less than a month away and I’m painting hard to get ready.

Chazz Balkwill, the owner of Artspace Oakville has also been working hard lately marketing the show. Chazz is putting an ad in Slate Mag this month and designing the invitations that will be ready next week. I’ll be sure to send one out to all, but in the meantime please mark the date Aug. 5th on your calendars.

Auction in Toronto

Good morning all!

On Thursday June 23rd I had the privilege of participating in an auction at the Ontario Bar Association in Toronto to help raise money to fight poverty in Africa.

Dave Toycen, president of World Vision Canada spoke about the many programs that have been implemented over the years and about how well we have been contributing to fight poverty, but that we still have a long way to go. He really is a wonderful speaker who gives the impression he is truly committed to the fight.

There were several items up for auction (it was a silent auction by the way) including Leafs tickets, dining gift certificates, autographed photos and of course….art! I’m not sure what the final tally was but every little bit helps, so congratulations to the OBA for organizing this incredible event.

Oh, in case you were wondering I sold one of the four paintings I brought, so at least I got my expenses paid for and now Sheryl Johnson owns ‘Girl in White’, a beautiful painting that was part of the City2Sunrise collection.

Please make note in your calendars that my new exhibition ‘OMO’ will be showing at Artspace Oakville on Aug. 5th. Hope to see you there!!

OMO IS COMING AUG. 5TH

Well, the date is set....OMO is coming August 5th!!!

We hope you all can join us for the opening on August 5th at Artspace in Oakville this summer. For those that can’t make it there will be a second show in Belleville at Gallery Artplus sometime late August/early September. Check back for confirmed dates.

SHOW

I’ve been working hard over the past couple of weeks getting ready for my upcoming show. The new work is, of course, all about my trip to the Omo Valley in Ethiopia.

It’s imperative, for me at least, to capture my adventure while the fires are still burning, so to speak. Usually when composing a new body of work things are fresh and exciting in the beginning but then as time goes by its a struggle to maintain momentum. It’s been a little different with Omo simply because what I saw there has never been captured on canvas and I want to get this out there so everyone can share this unbelievable experience.

Omo has been captured by many a photographer, amateur and professional alike, but to my knowledge has not been truly put down on canvas, save for the odd image here and there. Perhaps I have been the only professional artist to have visited Omo or at least the only one to do a show of it.

This series is different from anything you have seen from me in the past in so far as the paintings are much more aggressive than previous work. My palette has expanded and I am now incorporating more vivid colour into the paintings. Slowly I am growing into this work, taking time to develop new techniques and colour combinations.

Murzi child, 4' x 4', oil on canvas

It looks like the new show at Artspace Gallery in Oakville will be on the August 5th-7th weekend. I will confirm as soon as schedules are nailed down.

Brian Talks About Omo

Gallery Artplus in Belleville has been very kind to me these past couple years. Recently they heard about my foray deep into the Omo Valley in Ethiopia and decided this might be a good time to delve into video. As a result, Dianne and her husband Chris ventured out to the studio to film me talk about my adventure.

Have a look!!

Here are a few more images from the trip.

OMO ETHIOPIA: A Lost World

I recently returned from Ethiopia where I visited one of the most remote places on earth: THE OMO VALLEY. Only three degrees from the equator it was hot, dry, barren and well… inhospitable. Despite all this there are people living there much as they have for centuries.

I was introduced to the tribes of the Omo Valley through a documentary film by Joey Lawrence, a Canadian photographer living in New York. What I saw here created an excitement I hadn’t felt in a while, I was hooked. Before I new it I had booked a flight to Addis Ababa, the capitol of Ethiopia.

A little history: From the early days I was always interested in how people survived, made a way for themselves and their families. Specifically I wondered how they did it under the most dire of circumstances, be it from urban poverty or rural isolation. How do they survive? This fascinated me, but what was even more intriguing were those that lived this way by choice. Such is the way of the people of Omo Valley.

And so I was off, but unfortunately Margie couldn’t join me on this one so I was going solo. My plan was to get in, work and get out. No time for sightseeing, this was going to be all business. My focus was to capture as best I could the tribes people and their culture in order to construct a new series of work. This would be the first time I traveled specifically to gather material for work. I was excited.

I was greeted at the airport by my guide, Daniel Damtew of Glory Ethiopia Travel. http://www.gloryethiopia.com/ Although I was two hours clearing customs and waiting to obtain my travel visa, Daniel was still there at the gate waiting for me. I was relieved, because you never know when arriving in a strange country what you will encounter there. After all, I made all my arrangements over the internet including money transfers and it was always possible that things could have gone terribly wrong.  However,  right from the beginning
Daniel inserted confidence in me  that I had made a good choice.

After taking me to my hotel for the evening Daniel and his team picked me up bright and early the next morning. Daniel, a driver and cook, and myself jumped into the Land Rover and headed south towards Omo, some 800 kms from Addis. The road started off OK but it wasn’t long before things got bumpy and I don’t just mean a few potholes, I mean serious off-roading. The highway was under construction and we were forced to go off-road every few kilometers where we encountered many goats and cattle along the road. Not a cow here and there but rather herds of cattle, often a hundred strong or more blocking our path. This continued for basically the entire trip and after a while you just got used to it.

Without getting into too much detail the trip basically consisted of early breakfast, departure around 8:30am, travel for several hours, arrive in village, work, find lodging, sleep.

Seemingly in the middle of nowhere, many kilometers from the nearest settlement, there are small villages consisting of little more than a few grass-roofed huts. These are home to the Mursi, Karo, Hammer, Borena and Erbore tribes among others. They all have distinctive cultures with traditions unique to each tribe but perhaps the one aspect that is similar to all tribes is the ever presence of Kalashnikov’s. The men carry them everywhere fearful of attack from neighboring factions as there always seems to be ongoing disputes among the tribes.

Lip plates of the Mursi women to body painting of the Karo and scarifications of the Hammer, these people are unique in todays ever-changing world. Mostly untouched by western society save for the odd tourist or photographer they continue to be ambivalent to advancement, content to live a simple life. In many ways I am struck with envy. Perhaps this is why I strive to tell their story.

Currently I am working on a new body of work describing what I saw there on this mind bending adventure that has transformed me both as an artist but also as a person. The new paintings are fresh, exciting and I believe worth a visit. Stay tuned for the dates of my upcoming solo exhibition at Artspace Gallery in Oakville this summer.