Nancy Calder and her Nostalgic Compositions

Nancy Calder is a contemporary realist artist that focuses on still-life paintings. Having worked for over 20 years in more craft mediums, Nancy now seeks to paint life into her subjects, a process she finds “absolutely fascination.” The compositions Nancy chooses to render all have a sense of days gone by, such as Big Night Out, or Market Morning Weigh-In. These subjects lend themselves wonderfully to the style of realism and reflect the culture and lifestyle during the heyday of realism. Nancy’s images, while realistic, are still romantic with a strong sense of nostalgia. 

Nancy describes her paintings as “stories from a moment in time, a little curious and vaguely familiar.” We can relate to buying eggs at a market, but have we ever had to weigh our eggs? Nancy’s paintings are reminiscent of simpler times gone by, and their colors, rich yet muted, add to a sense of nostalgia. Nancy has always had a talent for rendering life through drawing, and began her realism work in graphic, carbon, charcoal, and then finally moving to oil paints, the medium she is most comfortable in, and her confidence shows through in her work. A Toronto native, after graduation the Academy of Realist Art, Nancy would become the Academy’s first female teacher ever! She now focuses her practice full-time, and we are very pleased to show her work at Westland Gallery in the upcoming show A Journey into Realism, on March 28th - April 15th 2017.

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Nancy Calder, Market Morning Weigh-In, oil on canvas