Buoyed but bagged!
That’s how renowned artist Chris Cran was feeling Friday afternoon, following a fabulous Thursday night opening of his work at the National Gallery of Canada.
“It was sensational, amazing!” Cran raved. “When the opening happened at 5 p.m., a flood of faces came through the doors, some I hadn’t seen for 20 years and others I saw just a few days ago.”
Cran was thrilled so many people showed their love and support, some travelling from the West Coast, Calgary, the Maritimes, New York, Los Angeles and Northern California to honour the artist and his work.
“There were probably 400 people in the auditorium when the curator did a half-hour interview with me on the stage,” he says, noting an after party for family, friends and lenders of his work was held after the main opening.
“I had to be up at 7 (on Friday) to be at the gallery at 9 to do a walk-through with gallery staff, then the docents.”
A visual arts museum of international stature, the National Gallery will be home to the 120 artworks in the Chris Cran, Sincerely Yours show which runs until Sept. 5. The gallery calls Cran one of Canada’s most notable contemporary artists.
“Chris Cran is renowned for his humorous and inventive takes on traditional genres such as still life, portraiture, landscape and abstraction. Challenging perception and drawing from major movements such as pop art, op art, modernist abstraction and photorealism, Cran playfully combines imagery borrowed from art history and popular culture,” reads the gallery’s webpage at www.gallery.ca.
