JOAN BALZAR

BIO

Joan Balzar (1928-2016) was foundational to the development of abstraction and conceptualism in British Columbia. Raised in Victoria, Balzar also lived in South America, Mexico and Guatemala, where her work was featured in major exhibitions throughout her career. From the 1950s, she was fascinated by the atomic age and electronic communication, incorporating neon, aluminum and plexiglass in her paintings. Working with the then-avant-garde medium of neon lighting (which also has a significant history unique to Vancouver), Balzar took it one step further by incorporating these luminous tubes into the body of her paintings. Channeling this material vibrancy, her large-scale “X” and “W” series of paintings project the illusion of three-dimensional relief sculpture, as one might read a neon sign, despite being two-dimensional works on canvas. Her pieces include materials such as acrylic, wood, neon tubing, and electronic transformers on canvas.

Balzar studied with painters (Jack Shadboldt, Joe Plaskett, Peter Aspell, Roy Kiyooka and Don Jarvis) at the Vancouver School of Art (Emily Carr University). This group of Canadian artists achieved early success in the 1960s, with expansively scaled, hard-edge abstract paintings and later, through their conceptual explorations.

“I will always remember how he (Jack) told me that when you put one colour next to another you should create a kind of spontaneous combustion,” Balzar later said of Shadbolt. Taking his advice to heart, her use of colour in material form lead her to vibrant abstract illusions. This body of work at Addition highlights Balzar’s legacy as one of the most influential West Coast conceptual artists of the period. Balzar’s Op Art canvases matched her persona: intensely bright and sophisticated. Op Art was an international art movement that emerged in the 1960s, and was actively embraced by a dynamic group of Vancouver artists of which Balzar was included. This new form of art celebrated instability, transformation and movement—evoked by both the optical phenomena occurring within a composition, and by the physical movement of the viewer in front of the artworks.

Following the breakup of her first marriage, Balzar left Vancouver and moved away from Canada for an extended period of time, to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, and then Guatemala. Balzer lost a significant cache of work in the 1970s, when a fire broke out in her West Vancouver home and studio, and some of her paintings and documents were also damaged and lost during her travels in Mexico and Central America. However, her surviving body of work – including luminous pieces in the National Gallery of Canada, Vancouver Art Gallery, Seattle Art Museum, West Vancouver Museum, Audain Art Museum in Whistler, and private collections – solidify her place in Canadian art history.

Exhibitions:
Above or Beyond