Brighter days ahead | Calgary Herald

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A fresh shot of colour can rejuvenate a room and, even better, rejuvenate your mood, just in time for summer. And really, who couldn’t use a blast of red, pink, green or yellow, after long dreary months of living through a pandemic?

Calgary painter and muralist Rhys Farrell focuses on precise lines and geometric patterns, while fellow Calgarian Mark Dicey, also a painter, features freeform flowing shapes and abstract splashes. Both share a bright passion for colour that can be seen throughout all of their work.

RHYS FARRELL

Pink, black and blue triangles cascade down a wall. A black and white tunnel — actually an optical illusion — opens onto a faraway vista. Bold spinning circles, shimmering lines, patterns that play tricks with your eyes — Rhys Farrell’s art is primarily acrylic and aerosol, and includes massive outdoor murals, residential wall projects and more traditional painting and collage. All play with colour and motion.

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“I like to soothe, irritate or confuse people’s eyes with colour,” says Rhys Farrell. “I think my work has a playful but intellectual view of how colours work together.”

Born and raised in Calgary, Farrell, 28, graduated from the Alberta College of Art and Design (now Alberta University of the Arts) with a bachelor’s degree in drawing and painting. He quickly made his mark as a painter and muralist, with residencies in Malaysia, Spain and Sicily; one of his murals is on view in the Sicilian town of Graniti.

He has murals around Calgary, too, including one in Inglewood, and for a time, he had a massive road mural at Deerfoot City. He’s done residential commissions for people who want murals in their living rooms and bedrooms, and he is represented in Calgary by Herringer Kiss Gallery.

His inspiration comes from architecture, fashion, travel and graphic design — “design and colour and how they’re used in the world,” he says. “Everyone experiences colour differently.”

Find out more about Farrell at rhysdouglasfarrell.com.

MARK DICEY

Every day, for 40 years, Mark Dicey has started his day by creating an image in his sketchbook. These days, he shares that work with friends and fans on social media.

“I love the spontaneity,” he says. “It’s a thought process, a very important investigation into my practice.”

There is almost always colour, even in these preliminary studies.

“The whole concept of colour is paramount to my practice, along with line and shape,” he says. “It becomes the vehicle to pursue the life of the painting.”

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In addition to his solo practice, Dicey, 62, is also part of Drunken Paw, a collaborative local artist trio. The group is currently illustrating the Alternative Art Map, an unconventional look at the local art scene, for the University of Calgary’s Calgary Institute for the Humanities.

A graduate of the Alberta College of Art (now AUArts), Dicey cut his art teeth in the artist-run centres of the early 1980s before returning to the college to teach and curate at various places, including Illingworth Kerr Gallery. His work has been extensively shown locally and around the world, including the Glenbow Museum, Paul Kuhn Gallery and the Canadian Embassy in Belgium.

For the past decade, he has been represented in Calgary by Jarvis Hall Gallery, where he will be part of a group show in May. Intense colour will be invariably be featured in whatever he exhibits.

“As I age, I give myself permission to pursue and investigate colour further,” he says. “Primary colours, certainly, but even those, I tweak. I’m always pushing it in different directions. There’s subtle mixing and following the rules, but then breaking all those rules, too.”

Find out more about Dicey at markdicey.ca.