Huddle Colour, 1976

Gift of the Artist, 2000 Collection of the Winnipeg Art Gallery

"Colour Therapy", Winnipeg Art Gallery, June 2023-June 2024

"Kenneth Lochhead: Recent Works on Paper", Winnipeg, 1972, page 9

Influential both as an artist and educator, Kenneth Lochhead is celebrated as one of the major figures of Canadian post-war art. In 1975, Lochhead moved from Toronto to Ottawa to assume a teaching position at the University of Ottawa. The move coincided with a shift in the artist’s preferred technique, from applying paint with an industrial spray gun to painting with viscous acrylic and wide brushes. Lochhead made expert use of the fluid properties of acrylic paint. The artist commented, “I’ve worked in various media like oil and water-based paints as well as egg tempera and I find I like the water solubleness of paint. I like paint thin and this acrylic is a thin tempera. It comes right out of the tempera tradition. It’s not really that far removed from egg although its qualities are quite different.” With “Huddle Colour,” Lochhead has layered large swathes of intense hues with fluid strokes. High-key colours dance in orbit around a central mass. The composition directs the viewer’s attention to a sun-like mass at centre. The pictorial space is charged with outward radiating energy. A central concern for the artist here is the interaction of colours. Lochhead stated, “Colour is of the senses. It must be felt and this is how I think about it. It is a way of life. I feel that colour through painting is primary. It is the one element in painting that gives meaning to light, line and space.”