Reviews

Soft Realism By Leslie Ebbs The Ottawa Herald November 18, 1987 Cardiff describes his meticulously detailed work as "soft realism" a re-arrangement of the elements of real life to the point of creative perfection. "I read somewhere that realist painters often paint that way - taking what they want from their subjects and manipulating the image so they can impose some sort of order on an otherwise chaotic environment. I suppose that, consciously or not, I do that with my work as well." Cardiff does a lot of his work painting from combinations of photographs he has taken. He is fascinated with the manipulation of depth of field and selective focus in order to distort or blur the reality of the images he paints. "I find that the out-of focus aspect of a photograph often becomes as much the center of attention as any other subject in my work," he says. Cardiff works in a variety of media - from ink and colored pencil, to pastels, acrylics and egg tempera. The layering of several types of media results in a variety of effects, one of which is a softness created by acrylics over a pastel base. "Most of the time I try to let the subject matter determine the type of media I use," he says. "Sometimes I'll start the drawing and find that I don't quite get the intensity I need, so I'll layer one medium on top of another and work it back and forth until I get the effect I want." This is a labor intensive process and Cardiff spends an average of 80 hours on each painting he does. Some of his more precise work can take anywhere up to 150 hours to complete. "It's partly a discipline. For the past year I've been getting up at four o'clock in the morning and putting in three hours before I leave for work," he says. "I find the fewest distractions in the morning, and I'm freshest then. I need to keep a regular routine." Born in Saskatoon in 1946, Cardiff painted throughout his childhood, and went on to study his craft at the Ontario College of Art and the University of Saskatchewan. Since moving to Ottawa in 1977 he has been working toward obtaining his B.A. Honors in Theory and History of Art at the University of Ottawa. Cardiff says that Ottawa affords him a variety of photo opportunities and subjects for his work. The time he puts into his painting is relaxing, almost meditative, he claims. "Sometimes I'll be concentrating on one square inch for more than an hour. It's as much a time for thinking as anything else."

Restigouche Gallery Displaying Works by Dennis Cardiff Campbellton Graphic 17 September 1981, page 12 The works of Dennis Cardiff are on display at the Restigouche Gallery until September 26 and all are invited to view these photo-realist paintings of great precision and detail. Dennis Cardiff was born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, in 1946. Since 1971, he has attended various art courses at the Ontario College of Art, University of Saskatchewan, Ottawa University and Carleton University in Ottawa. He is presently employed by the Canada Council Art Bank as Registrar. He is married to Dalhousie Junction's Gayle MacDonald, daughter of Herman MacDonald. Mr. Cardiff states: "I have come to rely more and more on photography to provide the visual information I require to produce my paintings. One tends to think that 'the camera doesn't lie'. This statement, of course, is false. With a variety of lenses, and by manipulating the depth of field and selective focus, the photographer can create a multitude of interpretations for any given scene. These blurred images and distortions of reality have become a sub-theme of some of my latest paintings. These images offer and infinite variety of believable yet utterly fantastic shapes. They allow me to indulge my imagination while still keeping to a representational theme. The completion of a painting is the culmination of possibly months of struggle, anguish and uncertainty. Attempts to capture and secure the illusive fluctuations of one's vision can cause acute frustration, and may reduce the status of the finished painting to that of a compendium of compromises. Yet, the creation of an object, unique as a fingerprint, with no other means to existence save through the efforts of the artist, offers a sense of wonder, excitement and satisfaction not unlike that aroused by the birth of a child. A painting is a vehicle for the visual communication of thought and feeling. It is the concrete expression of a vision; a vision which has been reproduced within the limits of ones technical abilities. Reduced to the simplest terms, a painting is an artist's means of saying, in pictorial language, "This is something that I have visualized, something that I consider to be of value, that I wish to share with you, the viewer." This same article appeared in the Dalhousie Tribune of 16 September 1981 under the heading "Dennis Cardiff Paintings on Display at Gallery".

York: Artistic exhibit on view by Robert Smythe The Citizen, Ottawa, Tuesday, July 19, 1977, page 36 Summertime, and most of Ottawa's art scene goes into a deep sleep. Sales are low, and some gallery owners pack up and go on vacation. It's not the season for one-man shows. Instead there is the "gallery-artist' show; rotated selections from the establishment's stable of contributors. The York Gallery, at 126 York Street in front of the Old Spaghetti Factory, continues this regular summer practice with an interesting collection of work by several local artists. ...Of the young artists represented by the York Gallery, Dennis Cardiff may become very popular. The Saskatchewan artist has developed a high realism style into something very original. He moves from a clever milk carton top monochrome, to a small painting called Locker which is a paintstakingly painted collage of ribbons, pin-ups, a volume of Freud and a work boot... The York Gallery is open throughout the summer, during business hours from Monday to Saturday.

Girls, Girls, Girls! Newspaper article by Bob Florence which appeared in the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix Monday January 30, 2006 "Girls! Girls! Girls!" shouted a barker outside a tent on the grounds of the Saskatoon Exhibition in the summer of 1962. Not that young Dennis Cardiff needed any encouragement to step inside. He had heard about this road show. In the paper he had seen the ad promising an entertaining program of song and dance, with a side order of comedy. "A cast of 60," the ad for the Club Lido Revue said, "including 20 lovelies." Dennis asked his parents about it. The show is for grown-ups, they said. End of discussion. At 16 years old, Dennis liked to think he was almost grown up. Besides, it's not as if they'd ever know if he saw the show. Even if they did find out, he could soft-shoe around it and tell them he had paid for it out of his own money, from his part-time job setting up pins every Saturday at Hunter's Bowl-Arena on First Avenue. His parents couldn't accuse him of frittering away his allowance on dancing girls. The feature performer with the Lido Revue was a woman from Detroit with a long and proud family tradition in show business. Both her mother and grandmother had been entertainers. Her husband, Tommy Timlin, was also in on the act. He was one of the cast of 60 in the Revue, a comedian. The woman's stage name was Blaze Fury. "The Human Heat Wave," the barker called her. As she danced, she peeled off her clothes, with a wink here, a shimmy there, she could make a teenage boy spontaneously combust. Her costume didn't come all undone. She left something to the imagination. Times were different then, back in the days of burlesque. Popularized by Josephine Baker in French music halls and perfected by Sally Rand's famous fan dance, banished in New York City in 1937 by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia as immoral, burlesque dancing peaked in the '50s and '60s. While largely gone, Cardiff is hoping those performers - and that time, that style - are not forgotten. "I play blues guitar and can find all kinds of history about musicians; blues, jazz, rock and roll," he says. "Same with actors. Even with vaudeville, there is quite a bit written. "Burlesque has little (of its history preserved), almost deliberately so. I feel they deserve to be honoured and remembered, maybe given the respect they haven't had." A portrait artist since 1972 and resident of Ottawa where he lives with his wife, Daisy Desson, Cardiff has completed six paintings of burlesque performers. Another six are in the works. He keeps the originals and sells prints, with half the proceeds going to support the Golden Days of Burlesque Historical Society in Salt Lake City. Through the historical society he contacts the performers. Before picking up the paint brush he gets on the phone and talks with each burlesque dancer he is about to feature. There's Dee Milo, Venus of Dance. Her signature routine was Sentimental Journey, portraying a lovers' reunion at the end of the war. There's Marinka. At 6-foot-1, she was billed as The Amazon Woman. There's Gilda, known for her waist-long drapery of golden hair. "I get to know these people," he says. "I want the portraits to be a narrative of their career. And I just like hearing their stories. They all have terrific stories. I can imagine sitting around a table with a beer, listening to them tell their stories." Like the one Tura Satana tells about Elvis Presley. She and The King were once an item. Trained in karate, she taught him some new stage moves incorporating martial arts. She had Elvis all shook up. A portrait of Satana is one of Cardiff's works in progress. He began studying art in Saskatoon under Ernest Lindner at the Technical Institute and lists among his other influences Wynona Mulcaster and Dorothy Knowles, both from the University of Saskatchewan. His works in landscapes and figures and still life have been exhibited since the early 1970s, just about the time he left Saskatoon and went East. Two of his paintings are in the permanent collection at the Mendel Art Gallery. His series on the burlesque dancers are like vintage posters, all costume and colour, a collage of ostrich feathers and lace and elbow-length gloves. "Burlesque," he says, "has always been considered a blue-collar entertainment. When it was in New York, it was in the working-class area. The one's I've talked to took pride in what they did. They felt they were elite entertainers. "They seem like genuine, well-rounded people. I don't think they deserve the reputation they had." So there he was in the summer of 1962. The Royal American Shows - lock, stock and cotton candy - had arrived on board 80 double-length railcars for Exhibition week in Saskatoon. The hot ride on the midway was the Calypso. Featured at the Grandstand were Ferry Forst, an illusionist, and Captain Schreiber's chimps and the Six Frelainis, an acrobatic bicycle troupe. "Girls! Girls! Girls!" shouted the barker outside the Club Lido Revue tent. Dennis bought a ticket and went inside. "Front-row seat," he says now. "Blaze Fury looked right at me and said hello. She was very friendly." She danced, peeled. She was a firecracker, that Blaze. "I went (to the show) every day that week," Dennis says, laughing. [HOME]