John's work Receding from 2007 is now in the permanent collection of the Beaverbrook Art Gallery in Fredericton, NB Canada. (2025)
This work is a seminal piece in regard to John's dealing with artefacts as cultural evidence of our collective human past. Culture is nature, and here, the front of the sculpture is the seabed, calcified fossils of the Texan landscape. The stone was picked because of this element of the living turned into mineral, representing our past and presence as beings of the world.
Feather, 2025 was installed in the sculpture garden of the University of Guelph in the spring of 2025.
It replaces a sculpture with the same title by John Greer that was stolen of the University premises.
To the left you see John Greer's "last" painting from 1986. It is called
"Hole in the Desert"
and measures 48" x 60".
After being involved in printmaking and painting for many years, John was in fact part of the nationally traveling show by the National Gallery in 1967, "Young BC Painters" , curated by Michael Morris, John abandoned painting and delved into the conceptual world of an object maker.
In 2024, now in his new studio in Pietrasanta, Italy, yes, here in the world of stone and bronze foundries, John picked up the paint brush again...
For more context, please click here.
John Greer is still exploring value systems.
Mind in matter in a cultural context.
È un modello di scambio, sia economico che intellettuale. La mente nella materia in un contesto culturale.
Commissioned for Southwest Properties for their recently opened Cunard Project on the Halifax waterfront. Nova Scotia, Canada. AWAKEN
JOHN GREER - ART IS A LANGUAGE
Please listen to the John's Episode of Materially Speaking - the podcast with Sarah Monk. Here I am talking about Art and Life. Thank you Sarah for the insightful interview and Gail Skoff, for the remarkable images!
Black Seeds, 1994 This sculpture is now in the permanent collection of the Winnipeg Art Gallery.
Stephen Borys, Qaumajug Director and CEO of the Winnipeg Art Gallery curated an exhibition around John Greer's seminal work "Black Seeds" as the first introduction of this floor bound sculpture as part of the permanent collection of the museum.
Various Metals and Stones was on view through April 2nd, 2023.
John Greer: Hard Thought
Ray Cronin
2019 / Canadian Art, Biography, Artists / $21.95
9781554471980 / Trade paper / 64 pp
A Gaspereau Field Guide to Canadian Artists: No. 4
When John Greer (b. 1944) started teaching sculpture at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in the 1970s, the college was fast becoming one of the incubators of the emerging international
Conceptual Art movement. From his early experiments in conceptual sculpture, Greer’s artistic practice shifted to re-engage with traditional sculptural forms and techniques, re-imagining them in a
way that would make him a pivotal figure in contemporary sculpture in Canada. In his essay, Ray Cronin recounts the arc of Greer’s career, demonstrating how Greer’s work refreshes and extends our
understanding of the language of sculpture and the way in which thought might be made manifest in material.
You can contact me directly here:
Image by Gail Skoff was taken for the podcast: John Greer. Art is a Language
John's retroActive book is life size.
National Gallery of Canada : THE PROUST QUESTIONNAIRE Image by Gail Skoff.
John carrying North. Image by Gail Skoff.
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