Medicine Hat Media

Art Exposure 7: Dean Smale

Painting by Dean Smale

Painting by Dean Smale

In this issue of Art Exposure I will be talking about Dean Smale – a Medicine Hat based musician, artist, and teacher for the Visual Communications course at the Medicine Hat College.

Dean is undoubtedly an amazing painter. His paintings are highly realistic, going so far as to depict the flow of blood under the papery skin of an elderly subject in some cases. They say that you cannot paint every leaf on a tree, but Dean only takes that statement as a challenge. Many of the subjects of his paintings are rendered in the nude, or are elderly, but in many cases both. His painting style involves building up textures, light, and shadows by using many layers of paint: undoubtedly a lengthy process.

In Dean’s paintings only by peering deep into his work can all the connections be made. For instance, in the portrait to the side, the woman’s earrings are hourglasses that have run out; a symbol of her age.

His illustrations are often amusing, but if you lack a modern or youthful sense of humour, they will just seem very perverse. Similar to his paintings close observation of Dean’s illustrations is required to see what is going on, since body parts can be so easily disguised.

His exhibits can often be seen in Medicine Hat, but are frequently in cities such as Edmonton and Calgary. Dean’s work hasĀ  even be seen in American galleries.

As a teacher, Dean encourages his students to produce good work at any cost. In one instance he went so far as to tell me that I should quit my job and rob a bank, all in an effort to spend more time creating art. I am pretty sure he was joking… or was he?

In addition to visual arts, Dean is also an accomplished guitarist. It is not unusual to see him perform at Visual Communications art shows. I have heard his style of playing described as “Way the f- out there! I don’t even know what to call it!”

Check out the galleries after the jump:

Photo Gallery: http://picasaweb.google.com/jessplattner/DeanSmaleSShow#

Video Gallery:

User Comments

One Response to “Art Exposure 7: Dean Smale”

  1. September 12th, 2010 at 12:22 PM


    Jayb says:

    Dean rocks! Siick art Dean!

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