About
This website is a showcase of the work of William Eric Nevens (pictured), by me, his kid. William was a Canadian artist who bounced back and forth between Vancouver, BC and Montreal, QC most of his life and career. He held a BFA from Simon Fraser University and had several shows in Vancouver, primarily in the 1990s, including this one at the Or Gallery:
Some of William's work is in the collection of the Art Bank of Canada and a few other pieces are in private collections. However, for the most part, the images presented on this site are all that remains. The images are scans of old, dirty, and surprisingly well-travelled slides. As a result, some are not the best quality, but I am nevertheless delighted that they at least exist somewhere in the world beyond my memories.
Unfortunately, few of the slides provide a real sense of the size of most of William's work, which was big - always as big as he could within the limits his studio space (and occasionally bigger, leading to many expletives). You also get no sense of the texture or smell, the latter of which was acrylic, raw canvas, and fresh cut wood. Plus mint in the end, lots of mint. But in exchange for the sensory restrictions of the internet, many more people will be able to see the work.
Which is the purpose of this site: to make William's art and artistic perspective available to more people. Though I also interject a little from my perspective. To me, of course, William was just dad. I'm not an artist myself, nor am I an art critic or an art historian. At best, I'm an occasionally enthusiastic but inattentive potter and even worse painter. But this art is part of me in a way that perhaps only other children of artists would really understand. The deconstructed and reconstructed world it presents is oddly comforting to me - it's what I imagine other people are feeling when they describe tasting food or hearing a song from their childhood.
I also think it's just pretty cool stuff and a lot of people have asked to see it.
Like so many others, William struggled to make a living from his art. Yet he stuck to it regardless and at great expense. “Artist” was by far his most self-actualised identity. Not parent, or child, or sibling - and certainly not the odd jobs he did on occasion for pay. He made this abundantly clear since the day I filled out a form for elementary school and wrote "cab driver" down as my parent's occupation since that’s what he was doing at the time a couple of nights a week. No, he said, I’m an artist. Just artist. And I understood.
I still do:
I suppose, as his kid, this could be upsetting, but it's not. In many ways he was a fantastic parent, much of which can be traced back to the same perspective on the world which he expressed through art. His art is also where he was happy. It's where he was most alive. So I’m glad that I can preserve some of that through this website. Although more people seeing his work doesn't make him alive, of course, it does keep some of his unique view of the world among the living.
And I'm so grateful for the gift of that view. Don't get me wrong, there were a lot of struggles from beginning to end. Let's face it, "brooding starving artist" is really only glamourous in the abstract. Yet, at this point in life, I don’t think I’d have it any other way.
In closing, I'm going to boldly dedicate this site to artists with kids and kids of artists. And especially to those in both groups who are just too fucking stubborn and autonomous to cede even a millimetre to inauthenticity.
Please enjoy.
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Content and navigation notes:
You can click on any image to zoom in. This works a bit better on a laptop than a cell phone.
I don’t have titles, dates, and sizes for many pieces so they are only occasionally provided.
Unless otherwise noted, all paintings are acrylic on canvas.
In addition to a little colour commentary from me throughout, the “Missing Pieces” sections at the bottom of pages are notes on some pieces I remember, but for which I have no images.
You can navigate through each room in the “gallery” via the links at the bottom of each page (for eg, the “Shaped >” link below), or you can skip around by going back to the “Gallery Entrance” page. I recommend going sequentially from room to room, but who am I to tell you what to do.