The Discounted Sublime (Paintings by Levine Flexhaug)
Levine Flexhaug (1918 – 1974) was an itinerant artist in western Canada who supported himself and his family by creating essentially the same landscape painting, which he sold during the summer to tourists in national parks and resorts. Painted rapidly on the spot, Flexhaug (a.k.a. Flexie) produced literally thousands of these landscapes.
In the mid 1990s artists Komar and Melamid conducted an international survey to determine what type of painting people most preferred. For the majority, it was landscape. Interestingly, forty years earlier Levine Flexhaug tapped into this desire with his endless variations of essentially the same mountain lake scene.
The installation was created for the exhibition USED/Goods, The Salvation Army Store, Montreal, Quebec.
Media: oil-based house paint
Dimensions: 31 paintings (various sizes) mounted on 3.7 x 4.3 m (12’ x 14’) plywood wall
Photography: Guy L’Heureux and Richard-Max Tremblay