PHOTO REALISM West Van artist has eye for detail WEST VANCOUVER artist Barry Lundahl likes detail — he likes detail so much that he spent 3,300 hours on paint- ings of Canada Place and Toronio’s Eaion’s Centre. Spending the equivalent of about 138 days on the works, Lundahl, 44, put tiny gloves on tiny Canada Place visitors, and brushed about 600 Toronto shop- pers. “H's to tell) people to look closer,"’ says the artist. ‘It’s just something that creates interest. You can dwell on it and you can discover new things.”” In Lundahl’s painting of Canada Place, plenty of things are to be discovered. A clutch of helium balloons flies skyward, each balloon reflecting the sun as it makes for the heavens. Light reflects gently off the skyline of Vancouver office buildings that make up the backdrop to the sail-adorned com- plex. A trip in a helicopter gave the artist a collection of photographs from which to work, and imagina- tion and talent did the rest — down to minute detail. Captured from the air, Lun- dahl’s vision of Canada Place is a harmony of many times and events — helicopters circling overhead, a water-spewing fireboat, a clutch of i THE 8) STEPHEN BARRINGTON News Reporter helium balloons, sailboats and two impressive white cruise ships. An architectural renderist by oc- cupation, Lundahl earns his living by giving perspective and form to the office blocks, condos and shopping centres that may only be a series of visually appealing forms on a designer’s drawing board. Using no magnifying glass, Lundahl now has trouble with his eyes after the works, and cannot focus on small details as well as he could previously. The Eaton’s Centre work, with a flock of Canada Geese swooping through, came before his Canada Place work and is more detailed “if you can believe it.” Each of the 600 shoppers — all individuals, no two alike — took about an hour to brush in. Ten provincial flags and a lengthy skylight to paint also kept Lundahl at his easel for many hours — a total of about 1,800 for the work. “In photo realism you can cap- ture more than you would with a photo — there are a lot of things that are Jost in the shadows,”’ | a week ft. of Lonsdale 996-6115 at _the Lonsdale Lundahl explains. As if Lundahl's detail is not tal- ent enough, the artist is also color blind. Lundahl frankly admits that be- ing color blind does cause him some troubles, but, ‘*You just have oO persevere and overcome that particular handicap.”" Doing renderings of interiors of hotels — where colors are subdued — sometimes presents trouble if colors approach red-green and grey parts of the spectrum. Right now the artist is working on another work similar to his earlier pieces. He will not say what it is, but does let on that it will be just as detailed as the Canada Place and Eaton’s Centre paint- ings, only ‘‘not as time consum- ing.’ A man who started off as a fine artist, renderist Lundahl wants to have people mistake his work for a photograph — after all, that is the reason for it. Lundahl’s detailed Canada Place work hangs in offices of some developers and businessmen who were involved in starting the waterfront complex project. He created the artist's renderings of the sail-festooned boat building back when it was just a shell of construction. The Eaton's Centre renderings too came from Lun- dahl's talented hand, as did renderings for the Daon Building. 13 - Friday, September 18, 1987 - North Shore News Save some summer PAGE17 f * NEWS photo Stuart Davie EAGLE EYE WEST VANCOUVER artist Barry Lundahl shows two of his favorite works. Because of the detail involved, the painting of Eaton’s Centre in Toronto took Lundahl 2,000 hours to finish. Canada Place only took 1,500. EVERY WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY Avalon Hotel 1025 Marine Dr. 985-4181