Don Reichert is a Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 artist. While primarily a painter in the abstract expressionist tradition, he is also notable as a photographer and digital media artist. Born in Libau

Libau, Manitoba

Libau is a community in the Canadian province of Manitoba. It is situated on the eastern edge of the Red River Estuary, just north of Selkirk. It is located in the Rural Municipality of St. Clements.- History :...

, Manitoba

Manitoba

Manitoba is a Canadian prairie province with an area of . The province has over 110,000 lakes and has a largely continental climate because of its flat topography. Agriculture, mostly concentrated in the fertile southern and western parts of the province, is vital to the province's economy; other...

 in 1932 to parents who had immigrated from Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

, he studied art in Canada, Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

, and England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. He taught for many years at the University of Manitoba

University of Manitoba

The University of Manitoba , in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, is the largest university in the province of Manitoba. It is Manitoba's most comprehensive and only research-intensive post-secondary educational institution. It was founded in 1877, making it Western Canada’s first university. It placed...

. Praised early on by the critic Clement Greenberg

Clement Greenberg

Clement Greenberg was an American essayist known mainly as an influential visual art critic closely associated with American Modern art of the mid-20th century...

, Reichert has produced work that is held in many notable public, corporate and private collections, including the National Gallery of Canada

National Gallery of Canada

The National Gallery of Canada , located in the capital city Ottawa, Ontario, is one of Canada's premier art galleries.The Gallery is now housed in a glass and granite building on Sussex Drive with a notable view of the Canadian Parliament buildings on Parliament Hill. The acclaimed structure was...

, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Montreal

Montreal

Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

 Museum of Fine Art, and the Canada Council

Canada Council

The Canada Council for the Arts, commonly called the Canada Council, is a Crown Corporation established in 1957 to act as an arts council of the government of Canada, created to foster and promote the study and enjoyment of, and the production of works in, the arts. It funds Canadian artists and...

 Art Bank, among others.

Reichert's early work often combined the elegant brush-strokes of abstract expressionist painting with the techniques of color field composition. Other significant strands of his work center on black-and-white paintings resembling Asia

Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

n calligraphy

Calligraphy

Calligraphy is a type of visual art. It is often called the art of fancy lettering . A contemporary definition of calligraphic practice is "the art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious and skillful manner"...

, or on the use of Latin America

Latin America

Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages  – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...

n imagery, particularly skull imagery derived from various Latin American ruins. He is perhaps best known, though, for large canvasses painted out of doors. While abstract, these are reflective of the landscapes around him, often the forests and lakes of the Canadian Shield

Canadian Shield

The Canadian Shield, also called the Laurentian Plateau, or Bouclier Canadien , is a vast geological shield covered by a thin layer of soil that forms the nucleus of the North American or Laurentia craton. It is an area mostly composed of igneous rock which relates to its long volcanic history...

. The technique of composition is unusual: canvasses are laid on the uneven ground, and the impression of the earth beneath is subtly incorporated into the composition.

Multimedia works include photographs that have been painted over, often with elegant splattering or dripping in the style of Jackson Pollock

Jackson Pollock

Paul Jackson Pollock , known as Jackson Pollock, was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality, and...

. He has also created works that incorporate photographs into painting. As Reichert is an accomplished pilot, many of these are aerial photographs

Aerial photography

Aerial photography is the taking of photographs of the ground from an elevated position. The term usually refers to images in which the camera is not supported by a ground-based structure. Cameras may be hand held or mounted, and photographs may be taken by a photographer, triggered remotely or...

: a continuation of his ongoing interest in landscape

Landscape art

Landscape art is a term that covers the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, and especially art where the main subject is a wide view, with its elements arranged into a coherent composition. In other works landscape backgrounds for figures can still...

.

He has worked closely with internationally acclaimed ceramic art

Ceramic art

In art history, ceramics and ceramic art mean art objects such as figures, tiles, and tableware made from clay and other raw materials by the process of pottery. Some ceramic products are regarded as fine art, while others are regarded as decorative, industrial or applied art objects, or as...

ist Robert Archambeau

Robert Archambeau

For the poet and critic, see Robert Archambeau Robert Archambeau is a Canadian ceramic artist. Born in Toledo, Ohio, United States in 1933, he immigrated to Canada in 1968. His work, heavily influenced by Japanese ceramics, has been exhibited internationally and is held in many major public and...

. Both artists operate studios in the remote Canadian town of Bissett, Manitoba

Bissett, Manitoba

Bissett is a community in the Canadian province of Manitoba. Located on Manitoba Provincial Road 304, Bissett is an entry point to Nopiming Provincial Park.-History:...

.

Reichert has for some years been affiliated with the arts magazine Border Crossings.