Calgary artist Paul Van Ginkel has been a full-time painter for 42 years. With over 2200 paintings created so far in his career, his work can be found in private and corporate collections around the world. After recently turning 65 he has no plans to retire and strongly feels his best work is ahead of him. While being pleased with his artistic abilities, he’s most proud of the fact that he’s able to turn his passion into a viable and very satisfying career. This has been achieved by his focus on the business side of his profession.
Paul Van Ginkel’s remarkable longevity and success stem from his comprehensive approach to artistic development, which he meticulously cultivated from his formative years. Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 1960, he later moved to Calgary, Alberta, where his artistic journey truly began. He initially honed his skills at the prestigious Alberta College of Art, demonstrating early commitment to his craft. Driven by a desire for advanced and disciplined training, he pursued and earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from Syracuse University in New York. This formal education, particularly his focus on Visual Communications, provided him with a strong foundation in design, composition, and diverse mediums, which he views as essential for any successful fine art painter. Following his graduation, he spent six years navigating the commercial art world, working as an editorial illustrator for the Calgary Herald newspaper and engaging in freelance illustration projects. This period instilled crucial business acumen and the discipline of working under deadlines, knowledge he would later integrate into his full-time painting career, ensuring he could thrive in the often-challenging professional art landscape.
Since dedicating himself entirely to fine art painting in 1990, Van Ginkel has become widely recognized as a premier Canadian representational painter. While his body of work encompasses an eclectic range of subjects, he holds a deep specialization and passion for Western themes, especially those centered around equine subjects. He is intensely drawn to the inherent beauty, formidable power, and rich history of the horse, and he is able to execute a diverse variety of moods and compositions, ranging from small, quiet depictions of a single foal to massive canvases portraying over a hundred stampeding horses, often blending a masterful realism with dynamic, impressionistic elements. This expressive and evolving style, which also features dramatic portraits, captures the raw energy and emotion of Western life, including scenes of cowboys, rodeo events, and the compelling history of Canada’s First Nations.
The Calgary Stampede has been instrumental in shaping his career, serving as a signature annual event where he regularly sells a significant portion of his yearly output. His deep ties to the event were solidified when he became the first “fine artist” selected to paint the annual Calgary Stampede poster in 2006, an achievement considered a significant pinnacle in Western art. More recently, in 2023, he was commissioned to create the monumental painting “History in the Dust,” which was transformed into a large 16-by-28-foot mural celebrating a century of chuckwagon racing at the Stampede.
Beyond the iconic Western subjects, his continuous pursuit of artistic stimulation involves extensive global travel, which expands his artistic horizons and photographic reference archive. These research trips have taken him to major art centers and culturally rich locations such as Italy, Australia, Mexico, New York, Santa Fe, Venice, and Andalusia in Spain. A notable example includes his journey to Seville and Madrid to research the intricate Flamenco culture, which directly inspired an ongoing series of dynamic dance and figurative paintings. This commitment to experiencing and documenting diverse cultures aligns with his core belief that an artist records their life experiences through their chosen medium. Van Ginkel’s philosophy remains centered on mastery and expression; he aims for his art to do more than simply decorate a space, but rather to engage, engulf, and stimulate thought and conversation, allowing the subject’s voice to dictate its visual language. His many accolades include being selected as one of the top Western artists working today by Fresco Fine Art Publishers in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He maintains an unwavering commitment to his art, fully embracing the creative expression and the long journey each signed painting takes into an unknown future, ensuring his legacy as a professional artist continues until his last breath.
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