James Neil Christopher Cran

James Neil Christopher Cran

 James Neil Christopher Cran, artist (b at Ocean Falls, BC 27 Dec 1949). Cran grew up in Salmon Arm, BC and studied at the Kootenay School of Art in Nelson, BC (1976). He graduated from the Alberta College of Art and Design, Calgary (1979), and continues to live and work in Calgary. He currently teaches painting at the Alberta College of Art and Design and has been a visiting artist at many universities and art colleges in Canada and the United States. His work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in Canada and the United States (49th Parallel Centre for Contemporary Art, New York, 1992).

Major solo exhibitions with catalogues include Inherent Vice at the Southern Alberta Art Gallery in Lethbridge (1987); Loved by Millions at the Art Gallery of Windsor (1989); Heads, organized and toured by Memorial University, Sir Wilfred Grenfell College Gallery, Cornerbrook, and the University of Lethbridge Art Gallery (1991-4); and Chris Cran: Paintings, 1993-1996, organized and toured by the Art Gallery of Peel, Brampton (1996-97). His work is represented in many corporate, private and public collections including those of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, Art Gallery of Windsor, Canada Council Art Bank, Glenbow Museum, Mendel Art Gallery, The National Gallery of Canada, Nickle Arts Museum, and University of Lethbridge.

Cran received national attention for his irreverent self-portraits in the late eighties. His interest in how images are constructed in painting and its relatives, photography and the media, continued in subsequent series: the "stripe" paintings, the "half-tone and stripe" paintings; and most recently, the "abstract" paintings, which rely on the play of light over ridges of paint.