Bill Bragg was born in Chatham, Ontario and took some post secondary education courses at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario in 1958. He began his artistic career at the Ontario College of Art in the early 1960's where he focused on life drawing, painting and print making. After a successful first career in the Canadian museum and art gallery field, the Braggs moved to the Okanagan so Bill could pursue his painting full time. Bill now resides in Kelowna with his wife Carol and has been an active painter for the past thirty-six years.
Bragg's approach to painting evolved out of the Abstract Expressionist Movement which dominated the international art scene throughout the 1940's and 50's. One of Bill's most influential instructors was Jock McDonald, a principal in the Painter's Eleven, an important Canadian painting group based in Toronto, Ontario.
Bill's painting has passed through many different approaches to abstraction, however, he has always returned to the figure as the basis of his composition. Although at times it may be hard to define the anatomy, the image emerges from the abstract evoking a sense of both familiarity and mystery. His colour and texture suggest a distant era; one of romance and spiritualism. With a well rounded education based in part in theology, sociology and philosophy, Bill has the necessary tools to redefine his world from that of detail and understanding to that of mystery and the ineffable.
You can always see a dichotomy in Bill's work. From the literal lines of anatomy, alternatively being revealed to us or hidden from us, to the haze of uncertainly; his art work deals with the mystery of abstract and the contrast of good and evil and dark and light, the eternal struggle manifests itself in works that people find compelling.
Bragg's work captures the essence of the human experience in the contortions and gestures of the figures in his work. His art celebrates the beauty and the difficulty of human existence. His work also offers his admirers, tradition, really good art works, a proper understanding of his responsibility to his art and a true sense of craftsmanship that is lost on so many artists of this day and age. Bill's work has been avidly collected throughout Canada.
Artist's Statement:
"Visual art is not words, it is communication. Ideas and concepts alone (without disciplines and skills coloured by emotions) are playthings of the academic."