Artist Grimes shares his love of painting old Bermuda landscapes
The Art of Christopher M. Grimes
Edinburgh Gallery
Bermuda Society of Arts
A Review by Charles Zuill Christopher Grimes is especially known for painted reconstructions of old Bermuda landscapes. Generally he employs old black and white photographs as his source, but his is not a slavish copying of the original; he converts the black and white into colour, additionally he adds people into the mix.
This is commendable, for most painted landscapes of Bermuda are devoid of any direct rendering of humanity. Even in our souvenir postcards, people are conspicuously absent; and yet our landscape is obviously a man-made one. It is difficult to find a place in Bermuda where a building is not visible.
In his artist’s statement, Mr. Grimes names certain artists who have influenced him. One of these is W.F. Snow and for those who remember Snow’s Bermuda landscapes, the connection is fairly evident. Grimes’ landscapes are not unlike those of Mr. Snow. By that I mean, they handle paint in similar ways.
Although known for historic landscapes, this is not the only thing that Mr. Grimes’ paints. In his current exhibition in the Edinburgh Gallery at the Bermuda Society of Arts, besides his landscapes, Grimes’ is also showing a selection of his marine paintings and portraits, both human and animal.
Nevertheless, his landscapes, by sheer number, dominate the show. Altogether there are 39 works in the exhibition, of which, 25 are landscapes, Three are marine paintings, eight are portraits and three are animal portraits.
Christopher Grimes is a self taught artist and as such, his work has all the charm that such paintings often have, nevertheless, there is a certain tightness or stiffness in his rendering of form.
He tells me that he is involved with the “plein air” painters and that this is helping him paint more loosely. However, none of his “plein air” paintings are in this current show.
This “stiffness” is most apparent in his depictions of people in the landscapes. They come across as clothed stick people.
With his portraits, there is less of this tightness and I thought the portrait of “Lady Vereker” his most successful in this genre.
My guess is that the historic landscapes will resonate more with most people. For some, many of these paintings are from photographs taken within living memory.
There is a tendency to look back on this earlier period with considerable nostalgia and despite all kinds of social inequalities at that time, there was a quietness and peacefulness here that is now long gone.
It was also a time when Bermuda was much less crowded, so in looking back, we remember more the positive aspects of that time.
There is one painting in the show that is exceptional, in that although one of Grimes’ historic reconstructions, it is not taken from an old photograph. This is “Front Street, 1828”.
At that time, photography had not yet been developed into a usable art. That was still a few years away, so this is a reconstruction based upon other sources, especially written ones. I could not help but notice that most of the caucasian population along the street were involved in chatting with friends and neighbours, while the blacks were the ones doing the work.
I remarked about this to Mr. Grimes’ and his response was that this was probably true. I also noted that although supposedly depicting a scene from 1828, the fashions worn by the people were from the second half of the nineteenth century.
When looking at Grimes’ landscapes, here and there, I found certain drawing problems.
I have already mentioned problems in depicting human anatomy; additionally, in a few instances, there are anomalies in his use of linear perspective.
The exhibition continues through December 13, 2006.
