By Anne Hansen

If you’re at Menzies at Niagara, occasionally you’ll see David and Laurie Ladmore’s sandwich board outside their apartment building, welcoming visitors to their art studio. On September 5th and 6th, they’ll be part of the annual James Bay Art Walk.

David and Laurie, who met in 1995, have become a husband and wife artistic team. David paints in the classical tradition, and Laurie’s canvases are more contemporary. Their densely-packed but orderly space at 103 Menzies is the hub of their lives and the ideal working atmosphere, according to David.

David, 56, is well-known in James Bay for his crow paintings. But there’s much more to it than the crows. He works in oils, watercolors and etching; his subject matter is the human figure, landscapes, and seascapes. David’s art hangs in private and corporate collections around the world, with representation in galleries in Vancouver, Chicago, Washington DC, and elsewhere.

I find David Ladmore’s art to be very evocative of Thomas Hardy, the British novelist who, in 1874, wrote Far From the Madding Crowd. This artist’s work could form the basis of an “illustrated Thomas Hardy”. They are paintings of the countryside, suggestive of the bleating of sheep and clomp of hooves. Ladmore’s Traveller #2 suggests the character Michael Henshard in The Mayor of Casterbridge, who sells his wife to a sailor in a drunken bout at a country fair. Summer reminds us of milkmaid Tess of the d’Urbervilles traversing a meadow. The crow series could be the “rooks” that the young Jude Fawley in Jude the Obscure was ordered to scare out of the cornfields on his way to school.

The influences on David go back before this period, though. He remembers “becoming lost in the paintings of Turner,” one of the greatest masters of British watercolor and landscape painting, who thrived in the first half of the 1800s. Growing up in England, David’s parents took their children on camping vacations across Europe. Along the way, they’d stop at the great art museums of Paris and London. Imagine going camping and ending up in the Louvre!

Although never formally trained in art, David became passionate about the works of the great printmakers. By meticulous study, he learned the methods of Rembrandt (1606-1669), to whom he feels a strong spiritual connection. With its storied array of etching and printmaking equipment, the Ladmore Studio is an anachronism – something from another place and time. Think of Delft, Holland, circa 1650.

Regarding his inspiration, “Often it is one main element that starts me off on a line of inquiry in a painting, usually something abstract such as the relationship between a couple of shapes or some reaction between colours or a mood that I want to capture. This is the main subject of the painting, and other elements are orchestrated accordingly. The painting has to work as a coherent whole. In my figurative work it might be the way one curve turns into another or the way the light falls on the form. I’ve had a love of landscape since childhood, a fascination with its expressive qualities and how it can evoke an emotional response from darkness and light. The subject is secondary to the arrangement of paint, the process and the expressiveness of the painting.”

As an art teacher, what kind of advice would David give to aspiring artists? “Be true to yourself. Avoid fashions and trends and so called cutting edge. These things are irrelevant and unhelpful. I cannot advise except in what I have done myself, which is to find the artist that you love and study their methods. They will have done the same thing.”

An extensive overview of David’s paintings -- including the exquisite watercolors, which tend to be more “bright” -- can be found on his website. “The accompanying painting to the article is called James Bay Interior. The 24” x 18” oil on canvas is part of a series of paintings and etchings of my wife Laurie.”

See David Ladmore’s art at: www.davidladmore.com

Contact info:
7-103 Menzies Street
Phone: 250-361-3243
E-Mail: davidlaurieladmore@shaw.ca