About the artist Gernot Dick
Atlin Centre's founder and guiding spirit, Gernot Dick, has been a professional painter, sculptor, and photographer. Gernot has been exploring alpine wilderness extensively for over 30 years. He recently retired from the School of Design, Sheridan College, where he taught art and design for 25 years. Gernot's work has been shown in numerous public and private galleries, and he has lectured and given workshops in colleges and universities.
But these credentials do not account fully for Gernot's inspirational impact on students and colleagues. More than an artist and teacher, Gernot is an adventurer. His experiences include high altitude mountain climbing, marathon running, white-water canoeing and competitive skiing. He uses these activities as metaphors to explore interior landscapes with the same passion and integrity that characterize his physical pursuits.
Gernot's career has included many unusual jobs: industrial and portrait photographer, Great Lakes seaman, and tree faller in the Peace River dam flood area in B.C. He also designed and built the Atlin Art Centre. His unique experiences and outlook provide much of the content of his teaching philosophy where he combines unique storytelling with humour, respect for human capacities, compassion for human fallibilities, and a talent for finding and sharing philosophical and aesthetic insights in everyday experiences.
In the early 1970s, Gernot found his way to Atlin. The power and beauty of the land reminded him of his home in Austria and inspired him to build a summer art school. He now directs the Atlin Centre, designs its programs, teaches its art courses and guides participants in the Centre's 10-day alpine hiking and canoeing adventures and offers boat charters on Atlin Lake.