Cliff Kearns
“Cliff Kearns is an artist, who with maturity and skill, has recreated himself and opened up a new-found freedom in the process.”
— Sandra Botnen, curator
Day 23 introduces Cliff Kearns who work may be familiar, as he has frequently appeared in the ThirtyDayGallery. Looking at 30 different artists in 30 days is a journey. What I am noticed so far is growing appreciation for what women have done to the face of contemporary art. Because of their perseverance, the patriarchal strong hold ultimately had to loosen its grip and become inclusive of all sorts of out-of-the-box expressions where many of the old rules didn’t apply. As I work through artworks that range from a hand-knit rendition of Leonardo Da Vinci’s illustration of the woman’s uterus, to a yarn bombed bicycle, I notice my tastes shifting away from abstraction to embracing more figurative painters where I feel challenged by the graphic nature of the subject matter. Portraits by artists Ilene Bothma, Cara Gury, Sherry Wolfgang, notably all woman, come to mind, and now Cliff Kearns. An establish male artist, he has weathered the transformation of the artwork, transforming his own work right along with it.
Cliff Kearns enjoyed a 35-year career as a freelance illustrator, raising three children off the proceeds of his artwork. As a portrait artist, he enjoyed a steady stream of commissions, painting power portraits for Bishops, CEO’s and other high-ranking individuals. The image included here is called,
“KAREN”, and depicts the director of the Westland Gallery where he was represented. And as a fun fact worth knowing, Cliff Kearns is the only officially endorsed painter to have captured the image of our Canadian hero, Terry Fox in a tradition oil painting.
But by the 2000’s portraiture had fallen by the wayside, and people were gravitating toward sculptural works, abstract painting and conceptual contemporary ideals. Kearns eventually moved from Toronto to Vancouver and started fresh, rebranding himself with entirely new themes and subject matter. A masterful painter of realistic images, he began painted light refracting through multifaceted diamonds. It’s a laborious process of meticulously taping off the clean hard edges of the diamond and the beams of light the reflect. He tells me they were inspired by his readings of a Franciscan Monk who wrote about the soul, likening it to a diamond. These works are simultaneously realistic, abstract, and beautiful.
He also became interested in numbers and began working a number into the composition of his paintings starting with one and working his way up. This can be in an interesting collector’s tool to track the evolution of the artist who is now working through his most mature work which combines the various art trends he has survived as artist. He also became interested in reclaiming wood and hardware resulting in textured collage of recycle material beneath the painted images.
What I enjoy most about Cliff Kearns is the skilled work that goes into his images but also the underlying creativity that has allowed him to adapt and work through changing times. Earlier on in the journey I mentioned the classic mid-career slump that causes many artists to abandon their practice and to pivot in new directions. But Cliff Kearns is an artist, who with maturity and skill, has recreated himself and opened up a new-found freedom in the process.