Haliburton County Library - Dysart Branch hosting Annette Blady and Al Van Mil

Artist's Inspiration

With a vision of paintings that literally break free of the canvas, Blady and Van Mil invented "moulage" in the early days of the pandemic. It became their way holding onto positivity as the enormity of the crisis was revealed.“Rising from the Canvas” was their first collaboration on an entire series of artworks. Forty artworks celebrating 40 years together in life and art. To create each moulage, they purposely cut up many of there own prized works into small pieces. Reassembling these pieces into new works that represents change and renewal....something desperately needed today. Kaleidoscape is part of this series.

Artist's Bios

Al Van Mil was born on the Isle of Texel in the Netherlands, to a scholarly and artistic family. For most of the last 50 years he has created visual artworks using a large variety of canvases. Van Mil’s work has been exhibited in private and public galleries, including the Musee Des Beaux-Arts in Montreal, The National Gallery of Canada and the Art Gallery of Ontario. Van Mil honed his technique as a performance artist, sharing the stage with many prominent musicians, dancers, and singers. Van Mil founded an architectural model making company named one of the top three in the world.

Annette Blady was born in Toronto, and is a graduate of the Ontario College of Art and Design. In the 80’s Blady partnered with Van Mil in an architectural model making company and rose to international prominence as an interior designer. Her work included projects in Chicago, Toronto and New York. Blady moved on from design work in 1989 to pursue a full time career in fine art. Exhibiting internationally, Blady’s canvases can now be found in prominent galleries and private collections in Canada, United States and Europe. Her eclectic style uses textured exotic papers and fabrics, cut glass, and metallic acrylic, as mixed medically paintings. her 3D encaustic work, incorporating papers and fabric are totally unique and have sold internationally. These works informed the moulage technique co-invented by Blady and Van Mil in 2019.