About
About the ArtistGreg Pyra’s love of art began at the age of six when he won his first colouring contest. From then on, he continued to take all the training that was available to him in a variety of schools in Saskatchewan and Alberta. He received a Bachelor of fine Arts in Visual Art from the University of Saskatchewan and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Calgary. After teaching at the University of Waterloo and the University of Victoria he left for Cologne, Germany for two years which was then the centre of art in Europe.He gained much insight into the art produced in Europe, both contemporary and historical, but the experience was troubling: Berlin was still divided and fears of a Soviet invasion were very real. Pyra returned to Canada to receive a Bachelor of Education and has since taught in rural schools for almost twenty years, primarily in the area of visual art. Pyra’s exhibition record extends to a number of galleries across Canada as far east as St. John’s and as far west as Vancouver. Although he is a figurative painter, he is fascinated by the evolution of abstraction in Canada and has come to have personal relationships with the surviving members of the Automatistes and their contemporaries. The light of the prairies in the dry, barren land around Drumheller fostered a deep love of changing light and seasonal conditions. Travel amongst rural westerners is typical and Pyra frequently makes reference to highway travel in his paintings. Pyra continues a lifelong search into the traditions of spiritual expression through the visual arts. For this reason, he continues to research how cultures and individual artists express a sense of spiritualism in their artistic expression. |
Artist StatementTravel in our vehicles throughout Alberta is a metaphor for the spiritual journey we all undertake in life. There is no particular destination for these travels; rather, the journey itself becomes the object of destination. These oil paintings on canvas represent moments of harmony with self and the environment, and a core inner peace. To my mind, the ideal time for these moments are just after sunset when day is not yet complete and night has not yet fallen. The spiritual journey is part of a magnificent search in our lives. It is within. The challenge for me as an artist is to create a metaphor for this journey without creating works which simply are landscapes. Light may in fact be the most important expression for me because it alters the environment in significant ways and expresses an inner state of mind.In quiet moments we also attain important moments where life is appreciated, and we benefit from the lifetime of search and questioning.-Greg Pyra |
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