Jeff Dillon is a contemporary Canadian landscape artist based in Waterloo, Ontario, creating original paintings and numbered limited edition prints. An elected member of the Society of Canadian Artists, his work has been exhibited and collected internationally, including Canadian embassy installations around the world. Over the past 16 years, he has completed more than 300 original heavy body acrylic paintings, with works held in private collections across Canada and internationally. For a closer look at his influences and visual language, see What Is the Art Style of Jeff Dillon?
From an early age, Jeff was drawn to the Canadian wilderness. He spent a lot of time wandering through fields and forests, collecting leaf specimens and learning to identify plants, wildlife, and birds across British Columbia, Manitoba, and Ontario. Nature was something he kept coming back to, both personally and creatively. He became especially interested in changing weather, seasonal shifts, old forests, and the fact that even things that seem familiar are never exactly the same.
In his early thirties, Jeff fully committed to painting, often working after hours and late into the night. It did not feel like he was suddenly choosing a new direction. Painting had been there in one form or another for most of his life. When he works, hours can pass without him really noticing. Painting still takes a great deal of time, concentration, patience, and physical effort, but it is the one thing he can keep returning to without having to convince himself to continue. As his skill and confidence developed, he began exhibiting his work in galleries and art shows and received recognition for his bold, colourful, and dynamic approach to contemporary Canadian landscape art.
Artists such as Lawren Harris and Vincent van Gogh have influenced the way Jeff thinks about colour, light, movement, and expressive brushwork. Collectors sometimes see connections to the Group of Seven and Emily Carr, although Jeff's paintings have developed into a visual language of their own. His work also shares some ideas with Post-Impressionism, particularly the freedom to simplify forms, intensify colour, and move away from exact representation while still keeping the subject recognizable.
Jeff continues to work from his Waterloo studio and is still interested in many of the same things that first drew him to nature when he was young. For him, the natural world is never really still. It is always growing, changing, moving, and revealing something different if you take the time to look. Painting gives him a reason to keep doing that: to keep looking, noticing, and finding new ways to interpret what is already there.
More About Jeff Dillon
For a complete record of exhibitions, publications, awards, and professional activities, visit Jeff Dillon's Curriculum Vitaeand Press & Media pages.
Explore original Canadian landscape paintings and numbered giclée limited edition prints, available worldwide through jeffdillon.ca.
Certificate of Authenticity · Map of Collected Works · Commissions