Finally, life in a van palled and artist went digital
Robert Amos, Times Colonist
Published: Thursday, May 15, 2008
Out of Plein Air, outdoor paintings by Keith Hiscock, Ken Faulks, Marcia Semenoff, Ron Stacy and Gretchen Markle, is an exhibit at Mercurio Gallery. This is a gathering of small panels painted on location around Victoria by five well-respected professional artists.
I visited one of the painters, an artist I admire named Ken Faulks. We met at his studio, on the second floor in a light industrial neighbourhood. It was 9:30 on Monday morning.
“I spent five years crashin’ in my van,” Faulks began. “And I was having a good time doing it. I’d get up every day, go to the gym, have a shower, ride my bike ... My kitchen was Paul’s Motor Inn. I figured it was a trade-off, whether I spent the money on rent or on the restaurant.
“I liked being in the van. But it got to the point where I was out of gas, living on a bowl of dry oatmeal a day. I was literally stationary. And then I had a big turnaround. I was depressed, and I just lay in my bunk for about 36 hours. Then I got up, I called around and I had a studio sale that weekend. I sold a few paintings.
“Really, I was launching them out wholesale. But with the proceeds I paid off my Visa, I bought a computer and went digital.”
Since then, Faulks has been working as a commercial artist, an illustrator, doing digitally what he used to do with a pen and brush.
“As soon as I could hold a pencil, I always used to draw. Down in my basement bedroom. My mom told me I used to grab all the packing materials, the shirt cardboards and whatnot to draw on.”
Faulks grew up in View Royal, on Portage Inlet.
“It was a great place to grow up. We had canoes, and kayaks and rafts.
“When I was about six years old, I saw an ad in a magazine and signed up for drawing lessons. I sent away to a place in Minnesota. It was 10 years later when someone came to our house, from Minnesota, and I did the course.
“After high school I worked delivering prescriptions and unloading trucks. Then, in 1983, I discovered air-brushing and illustration. I was a pretty damn good draftsman. You know, I am mechanically inclined, logical. Eventually I learned how to use a projector. Since it’s all time and money, why draw it if you can project it?
“I moved to Vancouver to work as an illustrator. In those days we used rubylith, and tech pens on
acetate.” Faulks spent six years working in Vancouver.
“I was visiting my family in Victoria one time, and met Andy Wooldridge. We went out painting together. I just had a little plastic bag full of paints, but I loved painting outdoors. Eventually, I let commercial art slide away and rode that feeling all the way back to Victoria; ‘let the games begin!’ and they did.”
Faulks pursued plein air painting with determination. Twice, he made extensive tours of B. C. and Alberta. In 1997 he went to Ontario to explore Algonquin Park. “I presold paintings to pay for the trip,” said Faulks, and he winced at the memory. A mural project in Kenora with Bill Dixon took him on the road once more.
“I am a happy-go-lucky guy,” he admitted with a grin. He appears to be a healthful, boyish man.
“By default, I use the process that the Group of Seven used. It’s not just that I love that Tom Thomson thing. Working on wooden panels seems so right. The quarter-inch mahogany is a warm ground, as opposed to white; it’s rigid, so you can’t poke a branch through it; it’s portable, lightweight. I
like the absorbency of it when you paint on the wood with oils. It’s well adapted to the scenario.
“It’s not really about the image. It’s about the paint. Painting landscape is probably the lowest on the artistic food chain. But it’s enjoyable, and it’s a challenge. I enjoy paint.
“When you come away from painting outdoors, what do you have? Not mountains and rivers, but paint. The paint has to be visually interesting, the paint becomes the subject. I love paint. The colour, the way it goes on, the direction of the brushstrokes.”
Faulks lays it on thick, with confidence. His compositions are vigourous, his sense of form full.
A large measure of what Tom Thomson and the Group achieved, Faulks here deploys, with our local land and weather for its theme.
The show is at Mercurio Gallery, 602 Courtney St. (388-5162), until Monday.
robertamos@telus.net
© Times Colonist (Victoria) 2008
- A Painter’s Prelude to Spring -
Victoria's Times Colonist - Front Page: March 2009
ADRIAN LAM, TIMES COLONIST
Ken Faulks braves chilly air yesterday with oils, brush, and gloves, near Oak Bay Marina. But sunshine brought hints of warmth and temperatures could rise to a balmy 10 C today.
Focus Magazine: May 2009
KEN FAULKS: GOING PLACES Mercurio Gallery - May 1-10 2009
THIS SHOW MAKES EVIDENT KEN FAULKS’ DEDICATION to painting en plein air, but also that Faulks is an artist poised to achieve wider recognition both in Victoria and on the larger stage. In his recent oil paintings, Faulks has captured the always-mutable aspects of the hills, fields, skies and beaches of our region in a series of works filled with spontaneity and brio, lush brushstrokes and a bold sense of colour and light. His keen compositional sense allows him to create—on the spot—paintings which at once hearken to the European landscape tradition, sometimes resembling the work of the Flemish masters, yet share the immediacy and nearly impressionistic vision of New World painters like Tom Thomson.
Faulks has said, “When you come away from painting outdoors, what do you have? Not mountains and rivers, but paint. The paint has to be visually interesting, the paint becomes the subject. I love paint.”
As a result of Faulks' delight for paint, his recent works are inherently generous and rich as objects, as well as vivid representations of transient times and places.
An illustrator since 1984, Faulks started his career as a fine artist in 1989, focusing on en plein air works. He has worked in oil, acrylic, felt marker, graphite, pen and ink. His current paintings show, in equal measures, confidence, skill, and joy. Mercurio is at 602 Courtney St, 250-388-5158. - Andy Graffiti
FOCUS MAGAZINE (May 2011 issue):
Ken had the front cover of FOCUS Magazine and an article inside covering the May/June solo exhibition in Victoria BC The Show consisted of approximately 35 plain air works (oil on panel) and 5 studio works. The exhibition opened at the Coast Collective Gallery in Metchosin BC. After a successful 3 day opening, which included a pre-sale and opening reception, the exhibition continued at Mercurio Gallery in Victoria.
Read the article (PDF: pages 28 & 29)...
KEN FAULKS: 'Bringing Home The Light'
Exhibition and Sale: May - June 2011
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