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To minimize the risk of Covid-19 to our clients, we are operating by appointment at this time. We offer flexible meeting times, seven days a week, morning to evening.

Services include contactless delivery to try paintings on approval and in-home consultations with masks, gloves and social distancing. We are getting creative in serving customers. We can meet outside the home to view paintings and deliver into garages or to the front door without contact. We are now providing framing services as suppliers begin to open.

If you are in the neighbourhood and want to stop by, we may be available in the gallery. If the outside door opens, please enter and a staff member will meet you at the inside door. Masks and gloves are available for patrons and staff will be equipped as well. We clean all heavy-touch surfaces daily with Health Canada approved cleaners.

To make an appointment, please call 905 822 5495 and we will do our best to meet you at the gallery at a your preferred day and time or on short notice. We hope these ongoing measures will ensure the safety of our guests, suppliers and staff.

We look forward to meeting with you soon.

Harbour Gallery

Jean Claude Roy

Solo Exhibition

ERRATICA 2020

EXHIBITION OPENS

Saturday, October 24

1 pm to 6 pm

Exhibition continues October 24 – November 7

Exhibition Hours

By Appointment 905 822 5495

Tuesday to Saturday 12 pm – 6 pm

Sunday 1 pm – 5 pm

AN ARTIST’S ADAPTATION IN A VERY UNUSUAL YEAR

The impact of the events of 2020 on individuals has depended in part on their situation. For Jean Claude Roy, a landscape painter who has travelled from his house to paint almost every day for the past fifty years, the impact was enormous. In his native France, people were not allowed to leave their homes except for basic necessities for a period of nine weeks, and the chief of police did not consider painting to be a necessity. But the need to paint found a solution: on day one, Jean Claude climbed on his roof, attached his easel to the TV antenna and painted his village. On subsequent days, he stood at the edge of his property to paint village scenes, or slipped across the lane, tempting the gendarmes to chase him back.  That worked for one week. Fortunately, the garden was coming into bloom, so every day, Jean Claude chose a new flower, matched it with a jug from his collection, and created his own landscapes inside the studio. His tubes of paint – which will reappear later in this story – intruded themselves into the landscapes and became part of the paintings.  When he ran out of new flowers, he “borrowed” some from the neighbour in early-morning raids, or slipped out at night to cut along the side of the road.

Permission to leave the property arrived just in time to prevent a series of scenes of vegetables, and Jean Claude resumed his painting trips around France. Returning to Canada armed with  travel permit and quarantine forms in July, Jean Claude had another plan:  for years, he had been hatching an idea to create a rock – a large rock – and cover it with his empty paint tubes.

For those of you who know Newfoundland, it is not unusual to find large isolated rocks, known to geologists as erratics, littered about the countryside.  A frequent subject of painting by Jean Claude over the years, he wanted to contribute his own, so during quarantine he began preparing his old paint tubes, saved since 1969.  They needed to be flattened, and an estimate made of how much surface area they would cover.  They had to be locked up against pilfering squirrels.  Welding equipment, rebar, fibreglass and resin followed, and his erratic is now well underway in its temporary location in the potato garden.

The title of this exhibition – ERRATICA – was chosen not only to refer to the rock, but also to the unpredicted and sometimes unhappy way that events have influenced our lives this year.  And let us not forget stella erratica – the wandering star – that draws Jean Claude around the countryside, and then slips into his paintings disguised as the sun.

Christina Roy

To make an appointment to view the exhibition, please email inforequest@harbourgallery.com or call ahead at 905 822 5495.

Jean Claude Roy Documentary
Tous Les Jours  – Trailer
By filmmaker Nicholas Mullins

Nicholas Mullins, a college student from Savannah, GA is currently studying in rural Pennsylvania. His childhood passion of telling stories about creators and creation led him to traveling to Newfoundland in the Summer of 2019 to create a documentary about Jean Claude Roy, an artist Nicholas has admired since he was a child.

The intimate short film centers around the daily routine of the reknowned French artist as he paints the coves and cliffs of the quiet, rocky island. Shot over the course of 10 days by a one-man crew, Tous Les Jours provides a quiet and inspiring escape from the day’s troubles.

For more about the film maker, please visit nmullins.com.