Shot on location in Spain and Canada, this visually lyrical film provides a carefully constructed narrative of the artist’s complex, inspired life. As a young art student Chambers left the provincial town of London, Ontario in the early 1950’s and sailed to Naples. In Spain he broke into Picasso’s house to ask him for advice, and ended up enrolling at the Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid. He lived in Spain for nine years, and when he came back to Canada he brought with him an artistic discipline as sharp as Spanish steel, a sophisticated Argentinean wife, and a new religion–Catholicism.

The film includes the full range of Chambers’ work up until his death at the age of 47 including oil paintings, drawings and experimental films. His effort to integrate the influences of photography and to reconcile abstract art with the conservative technical tradition that he embraced in Spain reflects the central conflicts that have defined artistic expression in the 20th century. For the last nine years of his life, Chambers struggled with leukemia, traveling as far as India in search of a cure, yet during his last years he produced much of his most radiant work.

Tracks and Gestures includes penetrating interviews with Jungian analyst and writer Marion Woodman, critic and scholar Ross Woodman, multimedia artist and co-founder of Canadian Artists Representation (CAR) Kim Ondaatje, and the great Spanish realist painter Antonio Lopez. It also includes original footage of masterpieces by Goya, El Greco, Velazquez, and Rembrandt from the Prado Museum in Madrid. The film has a delightful original musical score, and is narrated by two of Canada’s finest actors, Ted Johns and Cedric Smith.

– Chris Lowry