Blind Calgary artist ‘brushes up’ on a real-life murder mystery

It’s been a perpetual puzzler that goes back a century and now a Calgary artist is bringing audiences in the city a new look at the mysterious death of a Canadian legend.

Bruce Horak is a painter and performer who’s created a one-man show called Assassinating Thomson, dealing with the death of famed landscape painter Tom Thomson.

Thomson disappeared while on a canoe trip in Ontario’s Algonquin Park in 1917.

Horak’s script questions what happened after Thomson’s body was found a week later.

“Around the left ankle, there was fishing wire wrapped meticulously 17 times,” Horak tells his audience.

“The coroner ruled it an accidental drowning, but if it was an accident, why the wire? And if it was drowning, why the air in the lungs?

“So, what if it wasn’t an accident? What if it was murder?”

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“Thomson’s been a big influence on me as a painter,” Horak said, “and also, as I was researching his story, I found these really bizarre coincidences. For instance, Thomson was born on August 5th, which is my birthday. He was 39 years old when he died mysteriously and I was 39 years old when I premiered this show. And also, one of the people who’s suspected of having killed him is a man named Shannon Fraser, which was the name of my high school girlfriend.”

Horak paints a group portrait of his audience during each show, while filling them in on the challenges he’s faced in his life.

“I am, in fact, legally blind. I had cancer of the eyes when I was 18 months old,” Horak said. “I have extreme tunnel vision. So imagine looking through a straw, through a glass of milky water. I use a white cane so people know I can’t see them.”

Horak performs his show nightly from Tuesday, March 14 through Saturday, March 18, in a gallery at The Glenbow Museum.

“It’s just got the right vibe,” Horak said. “I mean, to be able to stand in a gallery like this and paint a painting and talk about Canadian art…It’s just perfect.”