Tracks is a new exhibition currently at the Godfrey Dean Art Gallery. The show collects the art of Joe Varro, who sketched and painted while on downtime with the Canadian Pacific Railway in the '40s and '50s.
The work in the show involves a wide spectrum of styles and methods, from quick sketches of things happening in the yard to much more detailed paintings and print making.
"He's drawing, painting and sketching from life at work," explains Don Stein, executive director of the Godfrey Dean.
The show is a document of history, capturing the life on the railway at the time, as well as capturing things like the endless downtime on the rails, with many portraits of sleeping or reading coworkers.
"I think he was also continuing his education and trying things out. He also had to spend all of his time at work, so he had that environment to do it, but it was the world around him. When artists are trying to make sense of the world around them, that's what they have access to."
Stein says that Varro's youth at the time the work was created is part of the reason why the show gives a different experience than most reflections on the steam era on the railway.
"This is a living experience and it is infused with a young man's energy... The work is full of that, as opposed to being much more reflective later in your life and harkening back to a bygone era. These were exciting times for him."
Many of the images are made using blind contour drawing, where the artist keeps their eye on the subject while drawing with a single unbroken line.
"If you can do that without looking you can go a lot faster and capture things more quickly from real life around. You can see some of his drawings are just fantastic and full of detail being done that way."
This is the first time that the work has been shown together, Stein says. Curated by Vic Cicansky, the work came to the gallery as a collection of old sketches.
"When we got it... It was just a pile of papers, old crumpled wrinkled paper in a cardboard box... The curator had the eye to recognize the quality of the work so he put together a really nice set of pieces, and I think when he sees it framed even he's going to be impressed."
This is the second of three planned shows focusing on the railway and its impact in Saskatchewan, with the next one planned to feature a First Nations perspective on the rails and their impact on the province and the nation, planned for 2015.
Tracks runs until September 14 at the Godfrey Dean. Admission is free.
