Propeller Member Since 2016
For over 25 years, I was the accountant by day, the artist by night. These may sound to be contradictory, but in reality, there are many similarities. The accountant and the artist both need structure and discipline and curiosity, an open mind and a grasp of abstract concepts.
I started drawing and painting around twenty-five years ago. I don’t have a formal art degree, but I’ve studied under a number of professional artists, including a pastel master class with Wolf Kahn at the National Academy in New York. In Toronto, I’ve studied with artists such as Barry Coombs, Susan Low-Beer, Ewa Stryjnik and Jacqueline Treloar. Also, I come from an artistic family. Collectively, they all helped me find my own voice. From watercolour to pastel to oil paints and a few other media interspersed through the years, my painting style has evolved over time, but it’s always been influenced by my first studies in watercolour. I like to work in thin, diluted layers of paint.
I spent time in the North, close to James Bay. There, I fell in love with the simple, stark landscapes, the massive skies. Years later, these would have a definite influence on my paintings. More recently, I was granted an art residency on the west coast of Ireland as part of the Cill Rialaig Project.
I am inspired by landscape. By the landscape of the North – Northern Quebec, Iceland, Ireland, Scotland. By the big sky. By the sea. My paintings, however, go beyond landscape. They are about memory – the atmosphere, the impression left by a sunset or a sunrise or a midnight sun, by a brief glance at the clouds or the horizon or the earth or the sea. They are the abstraction of this memory. They are the imagination of this memory. They occasionally surprise you – by the contrast of subtle colour changes and hard, bold lines, with bright colours and black and white. They transport you to imagined places, to imaginary moments. The landscape that we thought we recognized has become more ambiguous, more mysterious.
Creating art is very much about the journey. I enjoy the process of creating a piece of art – a drawing, a sculpture, a painting, a photo. My paintings are an exploration of colour, of light, of rhythms and patterns, of movement and space.
Over the years, I’ve had the privilege to be able to present my work in a number of solo and group shows in Canada. I’ve also shown my work in group exhibitions in New York City. My paintings can be found in a number of private collections in Canada and the US.
