As a member of the British Columbia Mountaineering Club, multimedia artist and printmaker Arnold Shives has spent a lifetime exploring the mountainous areas of BC. In his younger years, he made first ascents of mountains in the north Cascades and northern BC. These physical explorations of nature directly inspired the mountain imagery in his artwork – the freedom to be, think and create in the natural world. His work explores the tension between surface and illusion and humanity’s relation to nature. He is a renowned printmaker, working in monotype, intaglio and relief prints in which he uses an electric jigsaw to make “puzzle prints”.
Shives studied at both the University of British Columbia and the San Francisco Art Institute, in the early 1960s, spending his summer months exploring the remote mountainous areas of BC. In 1969, he completed his MA at Stanford University in painting and sculpture. His work has been exhibited across Canada, the US, South Africa, Europe and Japan; and can be found in numerous public and private collections, including the Vancouver Art Gallery, Burnaby Art Gallery, Art Gallery of Ontario, Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, National Gallery of Canada, Museum of Modern Art, Fine Art Museums of San Francisco, Tate Gallery, British Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum, and Bibliotheque nationale de France.
“Since early childhood I have explored the mountains around Vancouver and then later the Coastal Mountains of BC. Their natural beauty compels me to pay them homage. This mysterious longing for nature becomes infused with my need to pick up pencils, watercolours, oils or an etcher’s needle and start transcribing onto paper, canvas or copper plate.” Artist biography, arnoldshives.ca
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