Gordaneer, James

Person

Gordaneer, James

• Gordaneer, Jim

1933-2016

James (Jim) Gordaneer was a Canadian artist, born in Toronto, Ontario, in 1933. He predominantly painted in the abstract expressionist style and taught in several institutions in Ontario and Victoria. Robert Amos wrote on Gordaneer’s career as an instructor, stating “it is as a teacher, perhaps the teacher, of oil painting that he has made his most valuable contribution [in Victoria].” Gordaneer exhibited in Victoria, Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, the United States, France, and England. In Victoria, British Columbia (B.C.), he frequently exhibited at Chapman West Fine Art, North Park Gallery and Fran Willis Gallery. He was involved with many artist societies and groups, including the Canadian Group of Painters, the Chapman Group of Artists, the Ontario Society of Artists, the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, and the Canadian Society of Painters in Watercolour. His works are present in collections across Canada, including the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, the University of Victoria (UVic), the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, the Canada Council Art Bank, and many others.

Gordaneer did not complete high school, but found his way to education in the visual arts after he took a maintenance position at the Doon School of Fine Arts in Kitchener, Ontario. He then attended the school in a part-time work and study position from 1952 to 1955. There Gordaneer learned from artists such as Jock Macdonald, Carl Shaefer, Jack Bechtel, Alex Millar, and Yvonne Housser.

From 1955 to 1965, Gordaneer travelled in North America and Europe. To finance his travels, he also worked part-time as an art instructor at several institutes. From 1955 to 1961, he taught at the Doon School of Fine Arts; from 1956 to 1959, he worked at the University of Toronto’s School of Architecture; and from 1959-1965 he taught at the Central Technical School in Toronto. Gordaneer travelled to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, a city long popular with visual artists. While in Mexico, he briefly attended Bellas Artes, a fine arts school and learned from experienced artists, including Leonard Brooks and James Pinto. Later he travelled to France, Spain, Greece, and Finland. In 1961, he married his wife Miria, and a year later, they moved from Toronto to Orangeville, Ontario. To support his family and art practice, he taught at Orangeville District High School from 1966 to 1969. Gordaneer participated in the Toronto art community and exhibited in Ontario and Montreal while living in Orangeville.

In 1973, Gordaneer became a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Art, and belonged to several artist societies during this time, including the Canadian Group of Painters and the Ontario Society of Artists. In 1976, the Gordaneers moved to Victoria. In the same year, he began teaching at Camosun College with artist Jack Wise; as well, Gordaneer worked at Camosun until 1979. In 1977, he began instructing at Northwest Coast Institute for the Arts, later renamed the Victoria College of Art, where he taught oil painting until 1992. Other faculty members at Victoria College of Art included Jack Wise, Flemming Jorgensen, and Bill Porteous.

During the 1980s, Gordaneer was a sessional instructor at UVic in Visual Arts. From 1984 to 1985, he painted the Circus Series, which was exhibited at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria in 1987, and later at the Fran Willis Gallery. In 1989, he founded the Chapman Group of Artists, named for Gordaneer’s home on Chapman Street, with Raymond C. Lorens. Other members included Mark Laver and Jim’s son Jeremy Gordaneer. The group met weekly and explored topology and other topics “around physics, geometry, mathematics and religion” (Legacy Art Galleries). He also taught at the Metchosin International Summer School of the Arts (M.I.S.S.A) from 1991 to 1995.

One of the paintings produced from the Chapman Group explorations is the 1996 fifteen panel mural in oil, Space Lost, Space Regained. The mural currently resides on the third floor of UVic’s Mearns Centre for Learning - McPherson Library (2021). The Chapman Group of Artists had its final exhibition at UVic Libraries and later dissolved in 1999.

In the 2000s, Gordaneer had several notable series and exhibitions, including Out of the Shadows in 2002 and the Heads series in 2006. The Heads series was initially exhibited at the Fran Willis Gallery and later toured several regional galleries in the southern interior of B.C. During this time, Gordaneer participated in many community events such as the Fairfield Arts Studio Tours and the Moss Street Paint-In organized by the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. In 2004 the Fran Willis Gallery began representing him.

In 2010, the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria held a retrospective titled James Gordaneer: A Life in Painting. One of the last series he created was paintings of locomotives in 2015. James Gordaneer died on March 9th, 2016. Posthumously, his family established a Victoria Visual Arts Legacy Society Award in his honour. Jim and Miria have two children, Alisa, a writer, and Jeremy (1972 – 2021), an artist.

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Gordaneer, James. Space Lost, Space Regained. Oil on canvas, 1996, U008.38.1 – U008.38.15. Legacy Art Galleries, Means Centre for Learning – McPherson Library, University of Victoria.;
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James Gordaneer, RCA 1933 – 2016. A&JGordaneer, 2016, https://www.jamesgordaneer.com/about. Accessed September 2021.;
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Mir, Suzanne. “Jim Gordaneer.” gallerieswest.ca, 2003, https://www.gallerieswest.ca/magazine/stories/jim-gordaneer/. Accessed October 2021.;
"Two Studio Tours Display Local Artists." Times Colonist, Apr 24, 2008. ProQuest, http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/newspapers/two-studio-tours-display-local-artists/docview/348176791/se-2?accountid=14846. Accessed October 2021.;

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