Chris Cran Awarded the Order of Canada

TrépanierBaer is delighted to announce that Chris Cran has been appointed to the Order of Canada, one of the country’s highest civilian honours.

For more than five decades, Chris Cran has been one of Canada’s most original, inventive, and influential artists. His work is defined by curiosity, play, and a persistent investigation into perception, the nature of seeing, and how meaning in art reveals itself. A Chris Cran painting often looks one way at first, then shifts with an image becoming a pattern, a joke something serious, or a portrait an optical puzzle. Cran believes that meaning emerges in the space between the work and the viewer. His art invites viewers to participate in that experience.

His achievements extend well beyond the studio. As a teacher, mentor, advocate, and generous colleague, Chris Cran has helped shape generations of artists. He has mentored many and made significant contributions to arts education in Alberta and across Canada. His curiosity about other artists and media has also led him into performance and theatre, including his long-term involvement with Calgary’s internationally recognized One Yellow Rabbit theatre company.

Through his advocacy, leadership, and public service to the arts, Chris Cran has helped shape the cultural life of Calgary, Alberta, and Canada. It is no exaggeration to say that Calgary’s visual arts community would be significantly different without his contributions.

Congratulations to Chris Cran on a long and distinguished career, and on this well-deserved honour.

Oh yes, and let’s not forget his wicked sense of humour.

 

Glenbow Museum
Chris Cran
Chris Cran: At Play, One New Work, 2019
Image Courtesy Leah Hennel/Postmedia

Contemporary Calgary LOOK2024
Tricia Leadbeater, Chris Cran, Cheryl Gottselig