If, over a five-decade span, you were asked to summarize your career with a only few examples, it's likely you'd be hard pressed.
Fortunately, Maple Ridge artist Win Seaton has managed to pull together about 75 pieces to encapsulate his calling for a new retrospective show, which opens Thursday at Port Coquitlam's Leigh Square Community Arts Village.
In it, Seaton presents a wide array of works, starting from 1959, and going "full circle" through his painter's journey: from landscapes and representational to semi-abstracts and encaustic, and back again with a new oil series paying tribute to famous artists.
Seaton's passion for the arts was encouraged by his mother and grandmother, a schoolmate of Tom Thomson. At the age of 15, the family moved from Ontario to Nova Scotia, where he won a spot at the Nova Scotia College of Art. Realizing he wouldn't be able to make a living in the fine arts, Seaton moved to B.C., where he learned from west coast greats at the Vancouver School of Art, now the Emily Carr University of Art + Design. Among his instructors and mentors were Rudy Kovach, Don Jarvis and Jack Shadbolt, whom Seaton describes as "Canada's answer to Picasso."
After graduating in design in 1963, Seaton returned to Nova Scotia where he got a job at CBC as an assistant art director. Two years later, he and his wife, Lauren, moved to England where Seaton studied at the London College of Painting and, after grad, was under the wing of Ken Garland, a world-renowned leader in graphic design.
Seaton shakes his head when he thinks about the great artists he's worked with over years. "I should write a book," he chuckles.
A Port Coquitlam resident from 1980 to 2000, Seaton was employed as a graphic designer (he was the design co-ordinator Expo 86) and taught at the University College of the Fraser Valley until his retirement, when he and his wife returned to Nova Scotia to open a gallery and paint commercially. It was during this time that Seaton experimented with encaustic painting (beeswax) and multi-media work on old blackboards, with a marine theme. Eight encaustic pieces from The Church and the Palace series will be displayed in his PoCo show while another eight from the Blackboard collection will be exhibited for the first time.
Since 2012, when Seaton returned to B.C. for family reasons, he has painted regularly in his studio loft on 224th Street in Maple Ridge. As well, he makes weekly visits to Leigh Square to paint with the Art Focus Artists Association, of which he is a member.
Win Seaton will discuss his half-century career in art on Saturday, Jan. 15 at 3 p.m. at the Leigh Square Community Arts Village. The opening reception for his exhibit, One Man's Art - Five Decades Retrospective, is from 7 to 9 p.m. The show runs until Feb. 16.
