My Child-Star

About My Child-Star

This modern abstract painting is by Harold Feist.

Early in his career, the distinctive contemporary paintings of Harold Feist caught the attention of art critics and collectors alike. A masterful painter, he was best known for his almost intuitive use of colour, rich textures and expressive form.
With this painting, passages of thickly applied colour—in blues, aubergine, melon and gray criss-cross the canvas creating a lively pattern.

“(Using colour) I could turn off any logic when I worked, and this leaves the door open for some other faculty to come through.” Harold Feist

“He liked to quote Pablo Picasso's saying, "This is not what I sought, but it is what I found," about a painting he had just finished – an oblique encapsulation of the effort, by whatever means, to remain open to the unexpected, to avoid preconception and familiar solutions.” Karen Wilkin, Art Critic

Harold Feist was born in Texas(1945-2021) but held citizenship in both Canada and the U.S. He won a scholarship for the University of Illinois and changed his studies from architecture to fine art acquiring a master’s at the Maryland Institute College of Art.
While pursuing his own art, he took a job teaching at the Alberta University of the Arts in Calgary, followed by the University of Regina and Mount Allison University in New Brunswick. He decided to paint full-time in the late seventies. His work is held in both private and public collections in Canada and the U.S., including the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.