Chat with Rod Bellamy

Permission to do wrong things

RB : Your work carries the signature of a pseudonym – LooseCanine. What does stepping behind this name allow you to explore that perhaps Alan MacIntyre cannot?

LC : I had struggled to find a direction that I wanted to stick with for any meaningful period of time.

The LooseCanine pseudonym came as the result of an experiment. For a while, my work was split between two distinct approaches so I developed personas for each. Ultimately, they came together as LooseCanine.

Painting as LooseCanine allowed me go in directions that I wouldn’t otherwise have gone and gave me permission to do wrong things. I was able to set aside self-criticism or the pursuit of perfection. The need to achieve perfection can really derail everything. I certainly wouldn’t do the kind of work I’m doing without having worked through it that way.

RB : You describe your practice as constructed painting – a hybrid between painting, sculpture, and assemblage. How did this language of screws, glue, fragments, and reliefs evolve for you?

LC : I had been separating things visually – mostly with strong outlines. One day, I decided to make those separations literal. I started cutting apart finished paintings and then rebuilding them. I would engineer the construction so that they had layers– a kind of relief. 

I later started to make elements separately and put them together. Also, I was fascinated with many of the off-cut shapes so I started to incorporate those. The depth and complexity of layers has grown as my technique has evolved. Along with that, the palette has gone from dominant black and white to something much more colourful.

RB : The small dog figure appears in your constructions as both witness and participant. Is this your alter ego, a stand-in for the viewer, or something else entirely?

LC : The dog is the signature as well as a witness to the story-world of the paintings. He can also sometimes be seen to participate. It’s a little cut-out based on ‘Ollie’ how our current dog looked as a puppy. A lot of artist signatures make me cringe. They feel pretentious – especially if they’re large and elaborate. I wanted to make it something for the viewer to have fun with. People, especially children, like to find the dog in each painting.

RB : You relocated from Calgary to Knowlton, Québec in 2020. How has the physical and cultural landscape of the Eastern Townships shaped your studio practice?

LC : I would say that the density of the vegetation here has been an unexpected influence. The ecosystem is more dynamic here than in Calgary. That’s mostly, I think, because of the abundance of water. There are a lot more trees and vegetation here and a greater variety as well. As I say, it’s just really dense and that has shown up in my work.

Culturally, the Eastern Townships and Knowlton in particular, have a unique character and tradition. There are artists of every kind here – writers, painters, sculptors, ceramicists, furniture makers etc. The area is a hub for people following creative pursuits.

RB : There’s a playful energy in your work – bright colors, cartoonish interventions – yet also a structural seriousness. How do you balance humor with weight in your art?

LC : While I’m not sure I can easily separate the two, I do embrace absurdity. The fact that my artistic identity is LooseCanine is proof of that. There is a level of absurdity to the artworld and even to the act of making art that is undeniable.

I often find ‘serious’ things to be very funny. Humour is a kind of defense mechanism against the craziness of everything. Making fun helps us process serious things. My work makes fun of itself. So, yes, it is a balance of sorts, but in a push and pull kind of way.

RB : You use saws and other tools as well as paint brushes. The pieces are held together by glue and screws. What role does materiality play in storytelling within your constructions?

LC : I know that each I cut a shape and paint it and put it next to another, there is a new relationship. There is a conflict that happens when you put things together. There is tension and also a flowing together of elements.

RB : Your works often seem precarious, held together by screws and glue as much as by composition. Do you see this as a metaphor for something larger – perhaps identity, community, or memory?

LC : It’s interesting that you would mention composition. Nothing is really ever perfectly placed and I intentionally put things in places that are at odds with traditional ideas about what makes good composition. I like to see the elements coming together in a way to create tension and conflict. That way I find that as the process continues, the elements work things out amongst themselves until they all become one thing. That’s when the work is finished – when it’s one thing.

RB : Many artists of your generation are testing the limits of painting’s flatness. Do you consider yourself still within painting’s lineage, or has LooseCanine stepped into a different category altogether?

LC : What I do is more about making objects. I use painting as part of the process to create these objects but they’re not paintings in what we think of as the traditional sense. They’re not sculptures in the traditional sense either. It wasn’t a conscious choice to do it this way and I wasn’t trying to test any limits. Painting is still a big part of what I do but the point of LooseCanine has always been to be free of preconceived notions and just let things go where they will.

RB: How do you imagine the viewer engaging with your works? Do you want them to puzzle, laugh, feel uneasy – or all at once?

LC : The work is polarizing and I enjoy that. There is no doubt that for some people my work is a bridge too far. Reactions tend to involve either love or hate, rather than anything in between. In art, I think that doing something wrong can be a great thing.

RB : What’s next for LooseCanine? Are there new forms, collaborations, or exhibitions you’re dreaming toward?

I’m working toward a few things happening in 2026. I’m working with a couple of different curators. I’m also planning on coming out from behind the curtain and spending more time in front of the work. No doubt, some new characters and themes will make their way from being notebook doodles to something more tangible.

Plans are something that I rarely have – when I do have them I rarely stick to them. The goal for me is to keep moving in interesting directions and see where it takes me.