Croft/Holland Studio at Studios West 106 participating in North Shore Art Crawl, Saturday and Sunday, March 7 and 8 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. For details visit nsartcrawl.ca.
Artist Dene Croft, in his bio, paints an illusion of a brooding recluse.
Croft describes immersing himself in his world of film noir-inspired narratives within the walls of his Lower Lonsdale studio.
"I'm drawn towards heavy shadows," the oil painter reveals in an interview ahead of this weekend's North Shore Art Crawl. "My figurative paintings often reflect a bit of film noir kitsch - narrative paintings that leave the viewer writing the end of the story."
Croft conceives these moody works from his studio inside one of the city's oldest buildings, which, of course, only adds to the intrigue of his process as an artist.
The non-descript, beige low-rise at the corner of East First Street and Lonsdale Avenue was home, at the turn of the 20th century, to the old Empire Theatre, which advertised itself as "the only high-class photo playhouse in the city."
These days the historic building is a haven for creative creatures.
"So, the building is slowly filling with artists which is kind of neat because it's become a real hub for the arts community," explains Croft.
This weekend's art crawl offers an opportunity to catch a glimpse of Croft in his element, along with the many other participating North Shore artists who will be opening up their workspaces to the public.
In reality, Croft is quite the opposite of an introverted artist. He has turned his airy workspace furnished with 18-foot ceilings into an atelier where Croft and fellow artist Kiff Holland train and mentor fledgling artists. Deconstructing a painting and reassembling it in front of his students, while reaping collateral benefits for himself as an artist, is part of Croft's mentoring method.
"So, it's forced me to look within a lot and analyze exactly how I build a painting," explains Croft. "As a painter, you tend to paint quite intuitively and impulsively and you don't really think too much about how you are doing it." Teaching his craft has transformed Croft into a far better artist now than he was seven years ago. He says that without reservation.
The late-blooming artist didn't deliberately put brush to canvas until he was 35 years old. Which isn't to say Croft didn't have an innate ability as an artist.
He had a good eye for line and form, and spent a great deal of time drawing, reveals Croft, reflecting on his formative years.
"When you weren't out making trouble, you were drawing and doing creative stuff - and I think that's what I spent most of my childhood doing," says Croft, who grew up in a rural area of Auckland, New Zealand in the 1960s.
He stumbled into the arts as an accidental second career, after moving to Canada two decades ago. A one-time chef, Croft briefly owned a Lower Lonsdale café, Citroen Coffee House. But the bustling day-to-day operation of a business stifled his true passion in life.
As fate would have it, watercolour artist Holland walked through the door one day just as Croft was preparing to permanently close the café.
"He happened to be looking for a studio space, and I wanted to go back to painting full-time," recalls Croft of that serendipitous moment seven years ago. In painting style alone, the two artists are like, well, water and oil - complete opposites.
"We are like chalk and cheese in so many ways ... we are so juxtaposed in our styles and our approach," explains Croft. "In that respect we are complementary because we do bounce things off each other." Croft has left behind the film noir narrative, for now, and moving more towards exploring urban landscapes with his art. "The work strays all over the place, but it stays within a defined creative focus so you can tell it's been painted by the same hand," says Croft. That handiwork furnishes various galleries in all corners of the world from North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.
North Shore residents, luckily, don't have to travel very far to view Croft's painting, or the works of other acclaimed artists.
He is encouraging one and all to check out the annual art crawl and support the creativity that is coming out of the local arts community.
"Many times we find that the general public are intimidated to walk through an artist's studio - they feel that they are interrupting their work," says Croft. "We love having people watch us work. The art crawl is just an opportunity for the public, without any pressure to purchase, to just to see what the artists are doing."
Traipse through art hubs stretching from Deep Cove to Dundarave to Horseshoe Bay, and stop in at the various artists' home-based or commercial studios.
A myriad of art mediums will be represented during the art crawl, along with a sandblasting art demonstration, branch weaving, bookbinding, a wearable art fashion show, and lampworking - to name just five of the many weekend activities.
The North Shore Art Crawl runs on March 7 and 8 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. More info is available at nsartcrawl.ca.
