Arthur Lloy 1929-1986

Biography:

Arthur Lloy - Born in the small community of Melville Cove which is now part of Halifax, Lloy painted seriously for more than 30 years until his untimely death in a car accident while on route to a solo-exhibition in 1986. He enrolled in the Nova Scotia College of Art in the late fifties, where he studied drawing and painting under Marion Bond, Ellen Lindsay, and Donald C. Mackay. He also received additional instruction from the noted artist Julius Zarand.
Primarily a painter of his native environment, Lloy was almost obsessed by his love for the land —it's volatile moods, its power, its majesty— in all of its seasons. The great majority of Lloy's work was produced in the natural environment. He would travel by snow shoes or skis, cross-country and place his easel in the snow, where the splendor of a scene would banish any thought of the chill and cold. He has a genuine understanding of the Canadian woods. He depicts the woodlands with depth and understanding, sensitive to its changing moods and seasons, its drama and excitement– qualities which can only come from long association with the forest and time spent there in solitude. One European artist said that he found in Lloy's painting the essence of the Canadian scene.
As might be imagined, Arthur Lloy's paintings are as powerful, colorful, moody and uncompromising as nature itself. Using oil as his medium he achieves dramatic, if sometimes stark, effects with the use of bold brush strokes, strident colors lavishly applied and with minimum attention to detail.
Essentially an expressionist, with a boldness that mirrors that of the famous landscape artists– Group of Seven, Van Gogh and the French Impressionists, his paintings show a distinctive interpretation of the elemental forces of earth, water, and sky from which he derives his greatest inspiration and the portrayal of which, to him, constitutes the essence of enduring art.
Since 1959 he has exhibited in Halifax, Ottawa, Toronto, Hamilton, Guelph, Calgary, and Montreal. His work is in permanent collections of the province of Nova Scotia, the Art Bank of Nova Scotia and Acadia and Dalhousie Universities, as well as numerous private collections throughout Canada, the United States, England, Australia, and Spain.

Source: arthurlloy.com