Our next Artist You Need To Know is Dennis Geden.
Geden works primarily in painting and printmaking : his aesthetic is focused primarily on contemporary and historical figurative / narrative art in manners both serious and playful. He was born in North Bay, Ontario, in 1944 where he currently lives and where his primary studio is located. Geden has been an essential part of that visual arts community for the majority of his life and career.
From the Art Gallery of Sudbury : “Dennis Geden’s mysterious paintings test all five classical genres of the traditional art form at the same time. Each painting is at once a history painting, a portrait, a landscape, a still life, and, by virtue of the consistent repetition of the artist’s own idiosyncratic figurative style, strangely generic.”
In 1963 he moved to Montreal, Québec, where he studied at Sir George Williams’ School of Art (which would later merge with Loyola College to become Concordia University) : Geden graduated in 1966. He would travel for the next few years before settling in Toronto in 1968 for two years, but he returned to North Bay in 1973 and has lived and worked there for the majority of his career with the exception of stints in Paris (1972 to 1973, when Geden produced a portfolio of five lithographs at Atelier Desjobert) and London in the UK (1975 to 1976, when the artist created a portfolio of five lithographs at Curwen Studio). Along with these artist residences in England and France, Geden has also done residencies at Fringe Research (Toronto, Canada) and at Studenica Monastery in the former Yugoslavia.
Geden has spoken of how, even though his work is very influenced by growing up and living in Northern Ontario and he’s “always maintained a studio in North Bay, much of my ‘wider view’ comes from traveling regularly to Britain and Europe to research art and artists. I would say travel has had, and continues to have, a very positive effect on my work.”
Between 1973 and 2001, Geden was an occasional and part-time art instructor at Canadore College : he was also the director / curator of the W. K. P. Kennedy Gallery at two different times, in the 1990s into the early 2000s. Geden has taught at Nipissing University in North Bay (beginning as a part time instructor but was appointed as Assistant Professor of Fine Art in 2003) : he was a founding member of both White Water Gallery in North Bay (1977) and the Redpath Art Gallery in Vancouver. He’s been the curator of the Redpath Collection (in three different sites – North Bay, Toronto and St. John’s, Newfoundland) since 1996. Geden has also been on the board of directors for Visual Arts Ontario (1991 – 1993) and the Ontario Association of Art Galleries (2000 – 2005).
Geden was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Letters from Nipissing University In 2001.
His paintings and prints have been exhibited throughout Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Europe : notable solo shows have been mounted at the Redfern Gallery (London, UK), the Art Gallery of Newfoundland & Labrador (now The Rooms, in St. John’s, Newfoundland), MacLaren Art Centre (Barrie, Ontario), Art Gallery of Algoma (Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario), Simon Fraser University Art Gallery (Burnaby, British Columbia), Yukon Arts Centre (Whitehorse, Yukon), Laurentian University Museum and Art Centre (Sudbury, Ontario) and the Art Gallery of Peterborough (Peterborough, Ontario).
Major survey exhibitions of his work have toured to public institutions across Canada, and have been presented at Canada House (London, UK) and the Canadian Cultural Centre (Paris, France).
Geden has won commissions from both the Government of Ontario and the Art Gallery of Ontario, and he’s been awarded grants from the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts.
“In my studio there is always a pile of sketches and drawings, images clipped from newspapers and magazines, postcards of artworks, slides of most everything I have done to date, excerpts from various articles, and books – lots of books. I am continuously shuffling through these things, picking them up and laying them down. At the same time I will sit at my drawing desk and make tiny drawings from my imagination. Gradually, an idea begins to form.”
Geden’s artworks can be found in numerous collections including the Canada Council Art Bank, Canada Council, the Art Gallery of Peterborough, the Art Gallery of Sudbury, Bibliotheque nationale (Paris, France), Canadore College (North Bay, Ontario), Corvallis Collection (Oregon State University, USA), Curwen Studio Archive (Cambridge, England), Humber College (Toronto, Ontario), MacLaren Art Centre (Barrie, Ontario), North Bay Municipal Collection (North Bay, Ontario), Ontario Government Collection (Toronto, Ontario), Remy Toledo Gallery (New York, New York, USA), Simon Fraser University (Burnaby, British Columbia), the Slade School of Art Archive (London, England), the Tate Gallery (London, England), Tom Thomson Gallery (Owen Sound, Ontario) and W. K. P. Kennedy Art Gallery (North Bay, Ontario).