{{Short description|Canadian artist (born 1954)}} {{Use Canadian English|date=January 2025}} {{Use mdy dates|date=January 2025}} {{Infobox artist | name = Jeff Willmore | image = Jeff_willmore_atmike.jpg | image_size = 230px | caption = Picture of ''Jeff Willmore'' | birth_name = Jeffrey John Willmore | birth_date = {{birth date and age|1954|12|23|mf=yes}} | birth_place = Toronto, Ontario, Canada | field = Painter, graphic artist, storyteller | training = Fanshawe College }}
'''Jeffrey John Willmore''' (born December 23, 1954) is a Canadian artist based in London, Ontario, whose work combines painting, performance and storytelling. His paintings are held in the collections of The University of Western Ontario, Museum London, and the Canada Council Art Bank, (Ottawa).<ref>Nixon, Rick. ''Jeff Willmore: Organizing the Search for Tom Thomson.'' September 2007.</ref>
== Early life == After living in a number of small towns in Northern Ontario, Willmore's family settled in Sarnia, Ontario. Willmore later moved to London, Ontario, to study art. He enrolled on a design course at Fanshawe College in the early 1970s, but didn't complete his studies, leaving to work in construction trades; he later returned to Fanshawe and completed a Fine Art diploma program in 1980.<ref>Reaney, James Stewart. "Canadian Artists as they see themselves." ''The London Free Press.'' November 12, 1983.</ref>
==Work== After graduating from Fanshawe, Willmore produced neo-expressionist painting, drawing and collage. He exhibited at Museum London, Nancy Poole’s gallery in Toronto, and at the London Forest City Gallery including its annual performance art festival.<ref>Taylor, Kate. "Neo-expressionist continues climb with LRAG show."''The London Free Press.'' June 28, 1986</ref>
In the early 1990s, he created a series of painted landscape and portrait works, and in 1994 an exhibition, ''A Forest the Size of France'', combined painted, three-dimensional and performance aspects based on childhood memories of Northern Ontario.<ref>London Regional Art and Historical Museums. ''Jeff Willmore: A Forest the Size of France.'' October 1994.</ref>
His painting, Orange Erie Trawler, was awarded second prize in the Canadian Emerging Artist Price competition administered by the Canadian Art Foundation jointly with RBC and the Connor Clark Private Trust.<ref>The London Free Press''"Londoner places second in national arts contest."'' October 22, 1999.</ref>
His current part-figurative paintings adapt sketches of Southern and Northern Ontario, and Canada’s east coast. In 2007, Wilmore's exhibition ''Organizing the Search for Tom Thomson'' was held at London’s McIntosh Gallery.<ref>Nixon, Rick. ''Jeff Willmore: Organizing the Search for Tom Thomson.'' September 2007.</ref>
Since that time, his work has evolved to include numerous images of figures viewed from above, as exhibited in ''Interpolating Landscape'',<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.museumlondon.ca/exhibitions:93 |title=Exhibitions - Museum London |access-date=November 30, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160508144920/http://museumlondon.ca/exhibitions:93 |archive-date=May 8, 2016 |url-status=dead }}</ref> a major exhibition at Museum London from December 2013 to April 2014.
== References == <references>Nixon, Rick. ''Jeff Willmore: Organizing the Search for Tom Thomson.'' September 2007.</references>
== External links == * [http://www.jeffwillmore.com Official website]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Willmore, Jeff}} Category:1954 births Category:Living people Category:Artists from London, Ontario Category:Artists from Toronto Category:Canadian male painters Category:Canadian performance artists Category:Fanshawe College alumni Category:Canadian modern painters Category:20th-century Canadian painters Category:21st-century Canadian painters Category:20th-century Canadian male artists Category:21st-century Canadian male artists