User:Charronne

Ice Bear (Chris Johnston to his friends) is a status member of the Chippewas of Nawash at Cape Croker at Georgian Bay in Ontario. Born in 1953, for most of his childhood he was in the care of Indian and Northern Affairs. He credits his art and the strength of the visions the Spirits and the Creator have always given him for his survival of those early years. IceBear's fine art has evolved from a contemporary aboriginal graphic style through realism, to abstract. A common element of his painting is the inclusion of realistic elements in otherwise abstract paintings, using the abstract to define the reality, or the reality to give depth to the abstract.

Bio, in brief:The essence of what makes IceBear art has been with him always; as a small child, drawings were his only means of communication, as he was removed from his family and rural reserve at age 2, and speaking no English, placed in a Toronto foster home. With encouragement from a teacher and funding by Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, he attended the Toronto Artist’s Workshop, and later Sheridan College. As a teenager, Chris supplemented governmental support by creating paintings that friends sold on city streets. His first public art “commission”: a paper collage “stained glass window” for his church, was completed at age 10. It remained in place until the church could afford to replace it with real stained glass. Chris left Sheridan after one year and joined the art department of the Hudson’s Bay Company. He soon moved on to further his practical education at a series of different positions in commercial art and design, eventually opening his own design boutique. He moved to Vancouver in the early ‘80’s, to continue as an independent designer specializing in unique assignments. With his arrival on the west coast, and his acclimatization to the west coast lifestyle, his early love for fine art started to re-assert itself. He moved to Vancouver Island in the early 90s. His work and popularity as an artist grew over the years, and the communities of southern Vancouver Island started to take note of his huge public art works. In 1999 in he received a Community Arts Award for the contribution he and his public art had made to the Capital region. IceBear has exhibited in Europe and across the US as well as in Western Canada, his art is now found in corporate and private collections on four continents.

Public artworks in Sidney, British Columbia: Bas relief murals: " Nil/tu,o" ( as it was in the beginning), commissioned by Telus "The Cannery", commissioned by ExcelSystems Software Corp " The Year of the Ocean Mural", startup funds by the Government of Canada, with assistance from about 100 sponsors Monumental Sculpture: in Victoria, British Columbia, "Four Winds", located on the harbour at the foot of Swift Street mixed media piece.

More about the artist and his work on his website at www.icebearstudios.com <"http://www.artistsincanada.com/php/article.php?id=960"> an article by arts writer Robert Amos, Victoria Times Colonist <"http://www.aboriginalcanada.gc.ca/abdt/apps/vats2.nsf/vAllCompaniesByID/ACVA244.html?OpenDocument&lang=it&caller=3"> (translations to other languages available) A Portrait of the Visual Arts in Canada: Flight by Ice Bear fredericks-artworks.blogspot.com/2011/06/flight-by-ice-bear.html