A new bi-weekly feature in The Uniter’s arts section will ask people in the arts community about five of their favorite things, be it songs, movies, Pokémon cards, you name it. If you have a suggestion for someone you’d like to see featured in this section or a topic you would like us to talk about, e-mail [email protected].

Jeff Funnell is a Winnipeg artist through and through. Admittedly isolated and underrated, the only reason he stays in this city is because his cat is here and won’t let him leave.

“My cat’s name is I Love You, so that way I tell him I love him all the time,” the artist says during a visit to his studio and home in the Exchange District. “Every time I try to move away from Winnipeg, he gets sick. So I have to stay and take care of him, and he gets better.”

Cats are one of the recurring motifs in Funnell’s artwork, with hundreds of multicolored felines popping up on gigantic canvases throughout his space on Arthur Street. Though Funnel’s works are colorful and lively, the public hasn’t always rightfully appreciated his paintings and drawings.

“Winnipeg is a tough crowd,” Funnel says. “Apparently Winnipeg, according to the old Vaudeville actors, was the toughest place to play. And I believe it! Because you know, we’re really not all that interested.”

“I think Winnipeg has a strange relationship with their artists,” he continues. “They underrate art in general in Winnipeg.”

A former University of Manitoba student and professor in the Fine Arts faculty, Funnell’s career has had its ups and downs, though he’s focused primarily on the downs.

“I’ve worked here for 40 years and the Winnipeg Art Gallery doesn’t own one of my pieces. So when I was having my show at the Plug In, I wanted them to put that I was the ‘least successful’ artist showing … but they didn’t put that,” he says with a laugh.

Here are five of Funnell’s favorite, underrated artists of all time:

Don Reichert
“He was one of my teachers (at the University of Manitoba), so he’s quite well known. But for some reason in Winnipeg, he’s never become as famous as, say, Leo Mol. Leo Mol is someone that Winnipeg recognizes the most - I mean they built him a garden. I think Don Reichert is a far superior artist, but because he does abstract work I think that Winnipeg doesn’t really respond to anything.”

Ann Fallis Elliot

“She’s a ceramicist who lived most of her adult life in New York. I knew her in school. Now she’s moved back to Carberry and works there. She’s getting recognition but it’s just that I think (all) these people should be really supported and encouraged. And people should be happy that they live in their community.”

Jake Kosciuk

“He’s a young painter, kind of an abstract painter. He does many different kinds of work, sometimes its abstract, sometimes its figurative. And he’s really under-appreciated.”

Elaine Stocki

“She’s a photographer who has gotten into painting recently and is very talented.”

Jeff Funnell
“And of course, me.”

Funnell’s latest exhibit, Notes from the Inquest: Essay and Drawings, is showing now at the Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art (460 Portage Ave.) until Sunday, Jan. 20. The works in this exhibit were inspired by the murder inquest of Northern Manitoba Cree Chief, J.J. Harper that took place in 1988.

Published in Volume 67, Number 16 of The Uniter (January 16, 2013)