Jim Visser
Alberta…The open land, as observed primarily in Alberta’s expansive prairie spaces, is my ingrained organic living experience. So too are my many and varied visits in our mountains. Alberta is my home, my life, and my love. In painting the prairie spaces or high country, I am moved to ponder a possible interpretation of the moment. As a painter I wish to express my love and emotions for the revelations on display. In response to the beauty and grandeur, I put brush to canvas with a pronounced realism from the heart.
“Alberta is my home, my life, and my love.”
Alberta…The open land, as observed primarily in Alberta’s expansive prairie spaces, is my ingrained organic living experience. So too are my many and varied visits in our mountains. Alberta is my home, my life, and my love. In painting the prairie spaces or high country, I am moved to ponder a possible interpretation of the moment. As a painter I wish to express my love and emotions for the revelations on display. In response to the beauty and grandeur, I put brush to canvas with a pronounced realism from the heart.
Jim Visser was born in Holland, moved to Canada as a young boy, and settled into farming in northeast Edmonton with his family. He retired from years of full-time farming to a life of interpreting the Alberta lands, skies, and mountains with his paint brush.
His life as an artist was propelled by an extensive study period during the golden years of the University of Alberta Fine Arts Extension when he took drawing, watercolour, printmaking, and oil painting classes. In 2002 he attended an artist-in-residency program at Emma Lake in Saskatchewan.
"As I look and see I am compelled to interpret visually the soul of the scene, moment or memory."
He is a member of Visual Arts Alberta-CARFAC as well as the Canadian Artist Representation of Canada. He is represented in corporate and public collections and has been featured in solo shows in Edmonton, Red Deer, St. Albert, and Stony Plain. His work may be found in public collections in the Royal Alexandra Hospital, W. W. Cross Cancer, and the Kaye Edmonton Clinic.
“Ours is the presence of the temporary. My paintings are my desire to capture the presence of the moment. I am motivated by a desire to respond to nature’s rhythm. I look for an offered tableau spread that begs interpretation. Our prairie spaces offer symphonies of shadow and light, movements of subtle quiet changing to fortissimo drama. How to express the feel of undulating land and reflecting waters? How to paint the moods of the ever-changing sky? Who am I in the realm so palpable, so fierce?”