Literature:

Don Bain, Ivan Eyre, Pavilion Gallery, Winnipeg, June, 1999, n.p.
John Hirsch, “Ivan Eyre-The Consumate Artist,” Ivan Eyre Exposition, The Robert MaLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, 1980, page 8.
Joan Murray, “Ivan Eyre: Visual Philosopher,” Ivan Eyre Exposition, The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, 1980, page 11.

Note:

“Standing alone on the open land, I feel, at the same time, both large and insignificant in the magnitude of the space.”
-Ivan Eyre

Mountain Lines appears as a western landscape that is both omnipresent and familiar. However familiar Eyre’s subject may seem, it does not depict a specific location. The artist notes: “Although people have told me that several of my landscapes remind them of a particular scene they are familiar with, all of my landscapes are pure invention. In fact, on more than one occasion I have painted a scene then found it later in my travels.”

At the age of fifteen, the artist received an invaluable gift of binoculars which would assist in training his ability to view great distances in precise detail. Murray states that the artist “often divides his painting into a foreground of undulating masses…then creates a fantastically elaborate and complex backspace charged with a sense of other worlds.” The lateral movement of his mountainous composition is captivating and rhythmic; deep blue rolling hills and a dense, lush forest seem guarded by an immense, almost-heavenly glacier.

Mountain Lines incites a mystical experience. Eyre’s unique and timeless language is one which combines colour, form, texture, perception and memory. Hirsch writes that Eyre “…always has been his very own man, living and relating to his own landscape, always in pursuit of his own unique singular vision – an artist and a humanist in the true sense of the word.”