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Summerland Artist - Michael Dean |
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I have often wondered how some people are so blessed with abilities that so many others are not. I often wondered how they so easily transfer, with their hands and a brush, what they see into a carbon copy on a canvas in front of themselves. It has seemed to me that it must be some form of Black Magic. What you don't know or understand seems so alien and unfathomable. So it is when I meet people (and I meet a lot in my businesses) who simply amaze me with their talents and abilities. How is it, that with aging hands, they fashion all manner of beautiful creations.
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The purist may insist that 'art' may consist of only one form of creative endeavour. However, I ask how can you promote only one form of creative endeavour when so many forms exist to recreate beauty for so many to enjoy? So it is with Michael Dean of Summerland who recreates beauty in form and function using the watercolour medium. At the Dean home the walls are tastefully hung with artfully placed framed works. Not to be limited by subject Michael allows the appreciation of his work to run from still life through landscape to the natural world of birds, animals and flowers and yes, life-like personal portraits.
Michael began his appreciation of art early in life when he attended the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) in the late fifties. Leaving his chosen avocation behind to work and raise a family Michael sometimes meandered his way through his career paths into areas where his initial training in art could be tested and tasted. He worked his way through advertising, sales, hotel executive and resort management. It was during his management duties that the love of art and the medium of watercolour returned in force .He wanted to capture the effects of light and movement, the association of form and function, the juxtaposition of light and shadow.
Michael is particularly focused on capturing the effect of the position of light in a particular time frame in a particular scene. Capturing the effects of light became his particular challenge. Just as practice makes perfect constant attempts to 'reproduce' the 'light effect' came to him where what he envisioned, what he saw was transferred in type and kind onto the palette where satisfaction began to drive him more knowingly onto more and more challenging themes and subjects. One can see the gradual transition in his works from the less adept to more confident to 'I've got it' as Michael shows his work from his earlier days to what he now produces. His most recent pieces are now lifelike, true to colour, form and function with a depth that demonstrates that once elusive relationship of light, shadow and variance of colour. He produces a true perspective of life in Watercolour. Michael Dean can be reached at his home in Summerland.
2007-07 Gloria Flaman |
