Edited from a magazine article written by Adrian Corbeaux published in 1997.
Many critics today, especially those nurtured on modernism, have become bitter and cynical about the Fine Art of Painting which they have come to view as an anachronism. Despite many flourishing post-modern art movements they continue to pronounce art dead. When I posed this question to Al Van Mil, whether art can indeed be pronounced dead, he discarded it with a laugh and another question:
"Is singing dead?"
Some unusual facts about this artist's birth are quite interesting: at # 1 Sugar Street, in Texel, a small Dutch Island in the North Sea, Alphonsus Maria Willhelmus Margaretha Van Mil II was born, during a thunderstorm, at a few minutes past midnight on May 17, 1950. His given names include those of his parents, and grandparents, on his Father's side, whose lineage is some twenty times removed from the Castle at Mil in Holland. His Grandfather on his Mother's side, the chief of police for the city of Niemegen, boasted a Scandinavian heritage and the name Arenshoek (Eagle's Nest), a Viking name. His parents were university educated chiefly in the arts. Alphonsus Senior was a teacher of Humanities, Languages, and Fine Arts. His Mother, Margaretha, played the mandolin. The Van Mils would eventually have four children, two daughters and two sons, of which young Al was the second. They moved to Canada in 1952 when Al was 2 years of age.
All the Van Mil children had been immersed in the arts since they could remember. Their Father was forever writing and painting, and often took them on sketching trips in the woods and along the lakes of Ontario. Once, when Al Junior was aged 10, Al Senior was busy painting a picture in their kitchen. Young Al, picking up a piece of conte crayon, drew a perfect likeness of his father at work. Upon seeing this, his Father proudly proclaimed his son an artistic child prodigy and began to train him to paint. Eventually Al was able to paint in every style that interested him. This ability earned him the nickname Young Proteus from his father.
All through high school Al's talents earned him many commissions. For example he was commissioned by The Canadian Players to do the posters for their 1966 T.S. Eliot`s Murder In The Cathedral tour of Ontario Secondary Schools. He also illustrated all five of his year books. During this time his father, as a scholar, a teacher, and a visual artist, would always take the Platonic side of his philosophical discussions with Al. It was their expression of the infamous Baby Boomer Generation Gap. His father was a Modern. What was he? Post-modern? (Somehow hindsight is not always 20/20.) However, his mother, wanting to end the conflict, secretly took Al's portfolio to The University of Guelph in April 1969. He was accepted into early admission.
Al flourished at university. Besides his studies he served as Fine Arts rep. for 2 years on the Student-Faculty Committee. He wrote a monthly art criticism column for the university newspaper, The Ontarion. He earned extra money as a nude model, and acted as an assistant to the university's curator, Judith Nasby. Also he served as technician, in the sculpture, printmaking, and painting studios, during alternate semesters. In his spare time he wrote poetry and played guitar in a rock band. At this time he also participated in many group art exhibitions (i.e., The National Gallery, Ottawa 1970, 'Eclective Collective '; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto 1971, 'Art At Guelph '; and the New York University 1972 Multi-Media Show in video).
Eventually Al was no longer following a prescribed curriculum of study, but rather was following his interests. He worked his way to fourth level philosophy in order to study aesthetics, psychology to study perception, art history to study the Renaissance, humanities to study the classics, pre-med. anatomy to study musculature, and the media of art history to study fresco, etc. He took all the studio courses available in Fine Art and consequently learned to use all the media (i.e., paints: acrylics, inks, oils, lacquers, pastels, watercolours; sculpture: plastics, woods, clay, plaster, metal, stone; printmaking: silk-screen, intaglio, lithography, photography and video).
It was the time of "Flower Power". He got married. As one of the University's art prodigies he felt successful. He began to show locally with a group of artists, The Speed River Conspiracy, named after the stream that flows through Guelph, and also an offhanded allusion to the stream of consciousness. His amazing ability to easily emulate any style earned him another nickname amongst his peers, The Chameleon. Their work became very eclectic. They wanted to start an art movement. They proclaimed themselves Allists, printed pamphlets called The Allist Manifesto, and dropped them from the roofs of the arts complex. This did not, however, cause the sensation he had anticipated. Anxious to tackle the real art world first hand he decided to end his studies. In 1973 the University gave him a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.
After graduation Van Mil began to learn the true weight of real accomplishment: though he was deemed successful by various art publications of the time, money was scarce. Again he participated in numerous group exhibits as well as showing in various private galleries i.e., Theilson`s Art Gallery, Kitchener, London, and Calgary, 1973-77; Nancy Poole`s Studio, Toronto, 1978. He received an Ontario Gallery Association Grant in 1975, but found that he still had to support his art by working odd jobs, teaching, managing a warehouse, driving delivery trucks, harvesting tobacco, etc. By 1979 he was divorced and disillusioned. He was also seriously considering Commercial Art as a means to establishing a sounder foundation upon which to build his Fine Art career.
Through the connection of an old art-dealer friend he heard of a Toronto restaurateur who was hiring artists to do the design work for a new establishment in Stratford. The owner liked Van Mil's portfolio, and hired him, conditional on his being able to get along and work with the other artist he had hired for the job, Annette Blady. Al and Annette got along very well, designed the restaurant together, and later got married. They moved back to Toronto together and began searching for commercial art opportunities.
With another partner they started a company called Architectural Dimensions Inc. Initially a small shop to build Architectural and Interior scale models, over the next few years they quickly expanded into a larger company, designing and constructing all types of displays for major international clientele in Canada, the U.S.A., Europe, Australia, and the West Indies. In part this was due to Al's amazing ability to paint interior models so life-like that they were indistinguishable from reality in photographs. Also it was the start of the booming 1980's. This is a quick synopsis of a very busy time in their lives when they worked both day and night to meet many grueling deadlines. As the owners of this company, the Van Mils initiated and were involved in all aspects of business and production. They consequently developed an affiliated photography studio, and later a CAD/CAM facility. Very successful, they sold Architectural Dimensions in December of 1985. In 1986 & 87 Mr. and Mrs. Van Mil pursued other interests. These included Fine Art, Advertising Illustration, Book Cover and other Editorial Illustration, as well as Architectural Rendering. Also they had two sons.
They established a new company, Van Mil Studio Ltd., in December of 1987. The purpose of this company was to devote itself entirely to the production and sale of Fine Art, of course, by Al Van Mil and Annette Blady /Van Mil. Today, after more than ten years, both artists continue to show their work internationally. They have never looked back.
Throughout his career Van Mil's amazing virtuosity has enabled him to explore a variety of styles as an eclectic means of expression. "He truly can paint anything!" many astounded artists exclaim upon seeing a collection of his work for the first time. He may be a painter's painter but there is more to his work than prolific technique. Van Mil's experiments have always had a singular purpose, his idea of creating visual poetry. Beyond his pursuit of emotive colourization, expressive line and meaningful composition, he holds a strong interest in the juxtaposition of his ideas.
As he explains it, "These are not literary ideas, they are visual ideas, and they are not necessarily meant to be understood in a literal way. Throughout my simple day to day life various perceptions have struck me as being significant: a certain flower, a particular pose, an old statue, a picture of a mask, or a texture, and distinctive combinations of these move me somehow." By recompiling a much revised vocabulary for his art, hopefully into something composed of more than mere post-platonic grief and fatalism, he hopes that he can develop some new appreciation for meaningful streams of consciousness. Van Mil has come to view himself as a jazz artist of sorts, continually developing the arrangement of his own special look. "It's like a song, really, the kind you sing to yourself on a walk, about your life today, but the automatic unpremeditated perception of its totality, the joy of living. A lot of people say to me that they don't know much about art, but they all know what they like. Well, I sometimes wonder if I even know what I'm seeing, or if I only see what I know. I also feel that you can second guess yourself into oblivion if you over-analyze. It's like the ornithologist studying whether a bird flies because it has wings or if it has wings because it flies. I mean that the bird flies and it has wings. It all just is... I know this to be true and I can see it... Now, what else is there to see? (That's what Allism was all about.) There is that certain bird in that particular sky on that specific day when I felt that special way, and all of my background, both classic and contemporary, all together redefining it, and now you see it. So is there more to speaking than the spoken word, and more to painting than the paint? Are we capable of short range telepathy? In this way, I suppose, in the performance of my work, I become the spirit that haunts its medium, and how many copies can this spirit survive? There is the raw touch of my hand on the original, or the mark left by the squeegee which I pushed across a silk screen print, or the blinding flash of the camera that took the picture of it for this magazine, or the intervention of the writer's personal insights intermixing with your own as you read about it, or your reaction to the weather on the day you see it, or just your memory of it all much later, and still it moves you somehow. Anyway, my hope is that it will still move you as much as it originally did me."
It strikes me that this also partly explains the reason why so many people will give so much to get close to originality.
Some Recent Exhibitions of work by Al Van Mil:
Schieder & Assoc. Gallery, Yorkville, Toronto, 1994 & 95; Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition, 1995; Abbozzo Art Gallery, Oakville Ontario, 1995; Liss Gallery, Toronto, 1995 & 96; Teodora Gallery, Toronto, 1996; Denison Gallery, Markham Ontario, 1996; Artexpo, New York, 1996 & 1997; Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition, 1997; Artworks Gallery, Vancouver, B.C., 1997; F.H.Varley Gallery Group Exhibition, Toronto, 1997; Le Musee Des Beaux Arts, Montreal, 1998-9
Recent Awards: F. H. Varley Gallery Group Exhibition 1997, Toronto, Best Of Show Award; The Tiny Kite Of Eddie Wing, Stoddart Publishing, illustrated by Al Van Mil, the 1996 Library Association Children's Book of The Year Award; ULA Award for the Finest Serigraphy Print of 1997, Unisource Canada, Inc.
Some Publications with articles about Van Mil Studio: Builder Magazine, New York ; Canadian Builder, Toronto ; New York Magazine, New York ; The Chicago Tribune, Chicago ; The Financial Post, Toronto ; The New York Times, New York ; The Toronto Globe And Mail, Toronto ; The Toronto Star, Toronto.
Some recent book covers: 1995 Christmas cover for TV. Guide; Dark Garden by Margaret Buffie, Kidscan Press 1996.
Van Mil Studio can be contacted at:
Fax: (905) 731-6600.
