Owner Jarvis Hall established Jarvis Hall Fine Art as a gallery and frame shop in 2010. The intimate art space is committed to showing work by established and up-and-coming Western Canadian artists as the adjacent shop is dedicated to framing and hanging the art with the precise craft it deserves. Located downstairs in the 600 block of the city's 11th Avenue Southwest Design District, Jarvis Hall Fine Art shows anything from paintings and ceramics to photography.
Some of the names on the gallery’s roster may be familiar. Mark Dicey’s graffiti-esque abstraction has hung on the walls, as have the confrontational slogan paintings of retired University of Calgary art professor John Will. Others are not so well known.
Jarvis Hall, the gallery’s owner and namesake, leans against a wall next to several Patrick Dunford junkyard landscape paintings he is about to hang. The imposing, six-foot-plus proprietor explains why he chooses to work with certain artists. “There are three reasons. All the artists I show do work I like. They are passionate about what they do. And they are good people.”
His down-to-earth dedication to regional artists and disdain for art-industry hype probably comes from his own involvement in the city’s art scene as a musician, actor and art student. His personality was formed by the punk rock DIY ethic and his choice for substance over style informs the gallery’s mandate.
