Visser's art as beautiful as Alberta itself

It comes as no surprise that a man of the land like Jim Visser would turn his oeuvre into a picture perfect album of Big Sky Alberta. The former farmer from northeast Edmonton has spent decades translating his love of the earth into a plenitude of potatoes and paintings of the grand landscape.

Now that he’s retired from tilling the soil, he is able to focus all of his substantial energies into his art. Substantial is a good word to use too, as the majority of the works in Our Luminous Land, his new show at the Art Gallery of St. Albert, are what many would call ‘pretty big pictures,’ some of which are four feet by six feet with another stretching out to four feet by seven feet. That’s a real eye-opener, forcing the viewer to stand way back to see it all before moving right up close to feel like you’re right in the scene.

These choices were made for compelling reasons, he explained.

“I wanted to really work large for this show. This is where I’m at right now where I’m developing my size and the scope of my pieces,” he began, adding that there’s still a strong selection of more modestly sized pieces for the viewer. “I do like to work small. I like to work the whole range.”

The size of these works is not the only factor that stands out. One is immediately struck by the verdant trees, the saffron yellow farmers’ fields, the azure blue skies and the marshmallow white clouds that decorate it. The low horizon lines of his compositions are just as meaningful. Here is an artist who uses saturated colours not as embellishment but as a powerful dedication to the province that inspires him so.

In other words, he paints large not just because he can but because the subject demands it. Working large also means that Visser restricts himself to one decent exhibit per year, and that’s plenty for him. He suggested that it takes him that long to produce that amount of work and the large works make it seem like he must still be working at a breakneck pace. He joked that it actually takes 35 years to finish a painting, a hint that he is still learning and developing his skills.

He is represented by Edmonton’s Scott Gallery where he usually brings an annual crop of new works but this year, he decided to take things slightly farther afield.

This is his first show in this city.

“I’m familiar with this gallery and the space and I thought, ‘that’s the impact that I want to present with this show.’ There is a challenge of ability when you paint larger. There’s also the sense that, in my stage (as an artist) right now, I know the prairie landscape. It’s just a part of me. It comes out of here,” he stated, tapping his chest.

He becomes wistful, awestruck even, at moments.

“The landscape is … oh, man! When you’re out there, I just want to bring it with me. You are bringing that landscape into a smaller space but I just wanted to make it as large as possible.”