Artist’s Statement

 

 

Over the course of my career, I have strived to capture the feeling of interconnectivity that is inherent within Nature. Though a painting of a landscape may depict a specific place, it is ultimately a piece of the unified and continuous natural world, one that knows no boundaries and has no borders; in that sense, the painting can represent what I see as “oneness.”

 

It has been through communing with the oneness of nature that I have come to consider this land my home. Exploring the trails along the Canadian Shield is where I experienced a true sense of belonging. Nature has been my greatest teacher, an endless source of inspiration and solace.

 

Using encaustic and relief techniques, I lay out a topography, by creating textured surfaces on canvas or panel. The colours and pigments act as elemental occurrences, leaving their marks and interacting with the surface. In acts of evoking nature, I layer, flood, dry, and corrode the surface until the painting emerges. As the textures overlap and disappear into a singularity, the resulting piece of art acts as a reminder that we are all pieces of a continuous whole.

 

I have always had a fascination with plaster, how one can model it when wet, and carve it when dry. I also love painting on textured surfaces: The interplay of chance and intention as the brush is guided by the textured surface. My recent works are a culmination of years of developing a personal iconography based in this textural process. The abstract naturalism that I have found through it, mutates into different styles to express various chapters of my Canadian experience.