50 W E S T W O R L D | W I N T E R 2 0 1 5 meagan perreault
BY THE WAY
Alley Artist
by Christalee Froese
He creates magic out of puddle
reflections, garage doors and telephone poles.
Indeed, Wilf Perrault has spent a career bring-
ing Regina's back alleys to life on canvass.
Working 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily, he spends hun-
dreds of hours on each of his large acrylic
paintings – some reaching 45 metres in length
and fetching upwards of $20,000.
"e time and the money mean nothing to
me because all that matters is getting a paint-
ing to a point where it can breathe on its own,"
says Perrault. "at's the reward, making it live
on its own."
One of Canada's most celebrated urban
landscape artists, the 68-year-old stumbled
upon his unusual subject matter by accident
in the early 1980s while searching for abstract
objects that would fit into the unfolding con-
temporary art scene.
"Looking down was so abstract so I started
with puddles, but then slowly over time my
eye started moving up higher and higher until
eventually, after many years, I ended up with
this one-point perspective of garages, fences
and telephone poles."
ough he's earned the Queen's Jubilee
Medal and election into the Royal Canadian
Academy of the Arts, Perrault's crowning
achievement to date is a five-month solo show –
titled Wilf Perrault: In the Alley – at Regina's
MacKenzie Art Gallery. Opened in September
2014, the exhibit boasted 40-plus paintings and
a 45-metre wraparound panorama of the artist's
most beloved back alleys. nouveaugallery.com W
