Bios of Surreal Estate Artists

Herbert Siebner, "The Survivor", oil, casein, wax on board

Surreal Estate is here, and so is further information about the artists we're showing. It's a large, interesting and varied group, and these are just a few.

James Gordaneer
Painter (1933-)
Jim Gordaneer was born in Ontario. He lived in Kitchener and taught at the Doon School of Fine Arts. In 1975 he and his wife moved to Victoria, where he became the foremost teacher of oil painting. He still often paints plein air in his neighbourhood, working in a loose yet sophisticated impressionistic style. Jim has been painting for five decades.

Dorothy Field
Printmaker, Textile Artist
Dorothy Field has an MA in Design from UC Berkeley. She has studied paper arts in Japan and Nepal, apprenticed in a paper mill in Korea, worked at a papermaking collective in India and taught at Columbia College, Chicago Centre for Book & Paper, and Rhode Island School of Design.

Jack Wise
Painter (1928-1996)
Wise came to Canada from the US in 1963 and tried homesteading in interior BC. This and his time studying in India led him to the spiritual, archetypal art he is known for. He has made a significant contribution to the “Pacific Northwest School” tradition of art.

Chin-Shek Lam
Painter (1918-1990)
Lam was born in China and immigrated to Canada in 1970. He had a distinguished career that included founding the Institute of Oriental Art in China and Hong Kong. His work is rooted in Chinese calligraphy but Western elements were incorporated after meeting such artists as Picasso and Miro.

Ken Faulks
Painter, Graphic Designer (1964-)
Ken Faulks has worked as an artist since 1984. Originally he worked only en plein air and still produces many pieces this way, although he moves gracefully between traditional and digital mediums. Ken produced the two abstract murals outside Mercurio. He lives in Victoria, where he was born.

Jack Shadbolt
Painter (1909-1998)
Shadbolt established himself in the 1930’s in Vancouver and taught at the Vancouver School of art from 1938 to 1966. He and his wife Doris founded the Vancouver Institute for the Visual Arts in 1988. He has received honourary degrees from SFU, UBC and Uvic. He received the Order of Canada in 1972.