Jeffrey John Willmore (born December 23, 1954) is a Canadian artist based in

London, Ontario London (pronounced ) is a city in southwestern Ontario, Canada, along the Quebec City–Windsor Corridor. The city had a population of 422,324 according to the 2021 Canadian census. London is at the confluence of the Thames River, approximate ...

, whose work combines painting, performance and

storytelling Storytelling is the social and cultural activity of sharing stories, sometimes with improvisation, theatrics or embellishment. Every culture has its own stories or narratives, which are shared as a means of entertainment, education, cultural pre ...

. His paintings are held in the collections of

The University of Western Ontario The University of Western Ontario (UWO), also known as Western University or Western, is a public research university in London, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on of land, surrounded by residential neighbourhoods and the Thames Ri ...

Museum London Museum London is an art and history museum located in London, Ontario, Canada. It is located near the forks of the Thames River. It started its operations in 1940 with London Public Library and amalgamated with London Regional Art Gallery and Lon ...

, and the

Canada Council The Canada Council for the Arts (french: Conseil des arts du Canada), commonly called the Canada Council, is a Crown corporation established in 1957 as an arts council of the Government of Canada. It acts as the federal government's principal i ...

Art Bank, (

Ottawa Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...

Early life

After living in a number of small towns in Northern Ontario, Willmore's family settled in

Sarnia Sarnia is a city in Lambton County, Ontario, Canada. It had a 2021 population of 72,047, and is the largest city on Lake Huron. Sarnia is located on the eastern bank of the junction between the Upper and Lower Great Lakes where Lake Huron fl ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

. Willmore later moved to London, Ontario, to study art. He enrolled on a design course at

Fanshawe College Fanshawe College of Applied Arts and Technology, commonly shortened to Fanshawe College, is a public college in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. One of the largest colleges in Canada, it has campuses in London, Simcoe, St. Thomas and Woodstock w ...

in the early 1970s, but didn't complete his studies, leaving to work in construction trades; he later returned to Fanshawe and completed a

Fine Art In European academic traditions, fine art is developed primarily for aesthetics or creative expression, distinguishing it from decorative art or applied art, which also has to serve some practical function, such as pottery or most metalwork ...

diploma program in 1980.

Work

After graduating from Fanshawe, Willmore produced

neo-expressionist Neo-expressionism is a style of late modernist or early-postmodern painting and sculpture that emerged in the late 1970s. Neo-expressionists were sometimes called ''Transavantgarde'', ''Junge Wilde'' or ''Neue Wilden'' ('The new wild ones'; 'New ...

painting, drawing and

collage Collage (, from the french: coller, "to glue" or "to stick together";) is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole. ...

. He exhibited at Museum London, Nancy Poole’s gallery in Toronto, and at the London

Forest City Gallery Canadian artist-run centres (ARC or ARCs) are galleries and art spaces developed by artists in Canada since the 1960s. Artist-run centre is the common term of use for artist-initiated and managed organizations in Canada. Most centres follow the not- ...

including its annual performance art festival. In the early 1990s, he created a series of painted landscape and portrait works, and in 1994 an exhibition, ''A Forest the Size of France'', combined painted,

three-dimensional Three-dimensional space (also: 3D space, 3-space or, rarely, tri-dimensional space) is a geometric setting in which three values (called ''parameters'') are required to determine the position of an element (i.e., point). This is the informal ...

and performance aspects based on childhood memories of Northern Ontario. His painting, Orange Erie Trawler, was awarded second prize in the Canadian Emerging Artist Price competition administered by the Canadian Art Foundation jointly with RBC and the Connor Clark Private Trust. His current part- figurative paintings adapt sketches of Southern and Northern Ontario, and Canada’s east coast. In 2007, Wilmore's exhibition ''Organizing the Search for Tom Thomson'' was held at London’s McIntosh Gallery. Since that time, his work has evolved to include numerous images of figures viewed from above, as exhibited in ''Interpolating Landscape'', a major exhibition at

from December 2013 to April 2014.

References

Nixon, Rick. ''Jeff Willmore: Organizing the Search for Tom Thomson.'' September 2007.

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Willmore, Jeff 1954 births Living people Artists from London, Ontario Artists from Toronto Canadian male painters Canadian performance artists Fanshawe College alumni Modern painters 20th-century Canadian painters 21st-century Canadian painters 20th-century Canadian male artists 21st-century Canadian male artists