Jim Westergard’s sharp eye for detail is often turned to the eccentric, if not down-right bizarre, as evidenced by his wood engravings of oddball insects and strange and contradictory people.
Regardless of his subject matter, Westergard’s art is created with an extraordinary technical skill level. This can, perhaps, be more widely appreciated when oddness is taken out of the equation.
In a Class of His Own, at the Red Deer Museum and Art Gallery, is a collection of large figure drawings done by the now retired Red Deer Polytechnic art instructor during the 1980s. These delicate works were started as classroom demos, with Westergard sketching alongside his students. Then, to keep up his own artistry, he would take the initial outlines home and spend more time developing them in coloured pencil and pastel.
His male and female nudes, shown in reclining or sitting positions, have all the precision and detail of Westergard’s better known wood engravings, but were seemingly interpreted in a kinder, gentler way.
The dreamy “light” that falls on these figures is actually the creamy-coloured paper showing through — and this use of negative space fascinates Kim Verrier, the museum’s exhibits co-ordinator, who marvels at “the skin tones and the angles that he captures…. and the way light plays with the shadows in the sheeting.”
Fully realized hands and feet — the bane of many artists — are shown bursting through folded paper in one of the drawings — complete with sharply observed shadows that fade slightly along their edges.
Guest curator Joanne Gruenberg feels Westergard’s masterful renderings of the human figure are a testament to his artistic talents. “Jim captures the human figure with sensitivity and technical excellence,” that must have greatly benefitted his students, she added.
The life drawings in Jim Westergard: In a Class of His Own, are just a small portion of the large gift of artwork given to the museum by the artist. In 2020, he donated about 200 works of art to the MAG. In addition to these drawings, his gift included various series of his wood engraving prints and other works that will cumulatively provide a comprehensive understanding of Westergard’s career as an artist and teacher, said Verrier.
Born in Ogden, Utah in 1939, the artist was educated at a variety of colleges and universities in California, Arizona and Utah, where he completed his BFA and MFA at Utah State. He moved to Red Deer in 1975 and taught at Red Deer College as a printmaking and drawing instructor until his retirement in 1999.
He became a Canadian citizen in 1980, and has been a working artist for 40 years in Alberta.
Besides his high technical skill, Westergard’s art has also become known for its wit and humour. His books of prints include See What I’m Saying, his visual interpretation of quirky English words and phrases, and Mother Goose Eggs, his darkly humoured take on nursery rhymes.
The exhibit In a Class of his Own continues at the Red Deer Museum and Art Gallery until Nov. 19.
lmichelin@reddeeradvocate.com
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