BIOGRAPHY

HARVEY BODACH, BFA, B.Ed, (FCA - Active/ACTIVE MEMBER)

A journey of discovery with a passion for creating a visual stories.

Born in 1955, Harvey Bodach was a self motivated, energetic, curious and creative individual growing up as an eldest son in a family of five. They lived in a three story house on the edge of High Park in the City of Toronto.

His early years were filled with much activity, from exploring the outdoors to art projects inside. He visited numerous parks and zoos and engaged vigorously in a variety of sports including hockey which he still enjoys. At home he was drawn to creating architectural structures and building them to scale. As a self taught artist in the visual arts he began creating three dimensional sculptural forms, painted landscapes and animals portraits. These activities and creative expressions laid the foundations of what became a driving force in life, and what defined him as a landscape and wildlife artist and as a person.

Public education offered numerous opportunities for him to explore and apply this creative spirit. The visual arts classes were dominated with experimentation in impressionism, abstract expressionism, and surrealism to name a few, but in the end he settled firmly into representative art and the realism camp. He excelled in other classes by adding his artistic flare to each project.

Undergraduate studies were completed at York University where he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) honours degree in 1979. Later his post graduate studies took him into education, attending Brock University and graduating with a Bachelor of Education (B.Ed) degree in 1996. He sought additional qualifications at that time in visual arts with University of Toronto and Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), then technical studies with Mohawk College.

His choices in education have taken him through many challenging and stimulating careers in art. At first he expressed his creativity as a graphic designer, illustrator and art director for 19 years in the commercial arts industry. During this time the graphic industry underwent a revolution with the introduction of desktop publishing which served to expand his creative abilities. At one point he tried his hand as a part time freelance artist for five years working on both commercial as well as visual arts commissions in his free time. Later he went into education for 24 years and became a high school teacher with visual arts, multimedia technology and yearbook classes as teachable subjects.

Exploratory interests took him through wilderness zones in Canada, like Haida Gwaii in British Columbia, Banff in Alberta, Killarney and Algonquin Provincial Parks in Ontario and fed his passions to create art further. There were similar areas in the United States he visited, like the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley in Arizona, the southern ice fields of Alaska and the nature preserves of Florida which continued to stretch his vision. European trips to the many art galleries, museums and churches were explored which build up his knowledge and insight into the visual arts. Works by the great masters like Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Turner and other artists inspired and motivated him to excel in his own journey with art.

Harvey works primarily with acrylic and oil based paints using masonite boards as a base which he prepares himself by applying multiple layers of a gesso ground. The layers are built up and then sanded to a smooth working finish, providing greater technical control when painting the details of a landscape or wildlife in a realism style. When sculpting, he uses both water and oil based clays. His water based clay sculptures dry quickly and are fired once (bisque) and then painted with multiple layers of acrylic paint. The oil based clays offer more creative flexibility and dry slowly, molds are made and multiple casts can be produced.

In 1998 he set a major goal of growing a volume of approximately 30 works of artwork for some future solo exhibition. He did this in his free time and hoped it would help propel him into a full time carrier. Two decades went by and the number of completed works of art did grew, but not as quickly as hoped.

Upon retirement from teaching in June 2019 he took the final steps toward his goal. After having moved most of his family north to Thornbury, Ontario, he registered a new business there in January 2021 as “Artist”, and for the first time was working full time on his landscape and wildlife art. In February 2021, he joined the Federation of Canadian Artists (FCA) and became an active member by exhibiting and selling his art as part of group exhibitions. Then in June he published his own website www.harveybodach.com which he designed and constructed himself. This offered public access to his work in spite of two challenging years of COVID-19.

In the two years since, Harvey has earned some national recognition as an award winning artist, by having won three art exhibition prizes with the Federation of Canadian Artists, and has been the focus of two publications with the popular Escarpment Magazine in southern Georgian Bay. He has also been a major participant in Ontario’s Buckhorn Festival of the Arts, and fulfilled a lifetime goal of having his first Solo Exhibition at the SHED in Clarksburg. His website boasts that there are still 21 of 24 originals still available for purchase, as well as 12 new giclée signed and numbered limited edition prints ( /300) for sale and HST free.

Currently a second Solo Exhibition is being planned for spring of 2024. It will take place in the Art Gallery of the historic Meaford Hall Arts & Cultural Centre in Meaford, Ontario, and run from April 13 to May 12, 2024. A display of 30 paintings, drawings and sculptures will be open for public viewing and sale at the gallery.

In addition to this, two new paintings have been accepted by the Federation of Canadian Artists (FCA) at their Federation Gallery in Vancouver. For the “2024 Animal Exhibition” which runs from January 30 - February 18 - the painting “Escarpment Cougar on Alert” is for sale in the gallery. Then for the “2024 Artists’ Choice Online Exhibition” which runs from February 1-21 - the painting “An Ascending Landscape with Immature Bald Eagle” is available for viewing online. Both are Juried Exhibitions with prizes. Go to federationgallery.com/exhibition. (Note: virtual gallery of artworks is also available).

(01/18/2024)

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Contact with the artist Harvey Bodach can be made through his website www.harveybodch.com and harveybodach@gmail.com and then by going to the Contact Page or the Contact to Purchase Pages.

Note: For a limited time only, no HST charge with purchases through website.