Honourable Mention
Acrylic on Canvas
24 x 48 x 1.5 inches
$1300

On Painting

I play with the push and pull of opposing visual elements: contrasting geometric with organic shapes; areas of light with dark; and defined forms with ambiguous ones. I am captivated by colour: the contrast between adjacent colours and the complexity within a colour. Regardless of the subject or media, I create colour in layers. This allows me to deconstruct and reassemble the colour. I choose my subjects according to the colours and composition they offer.

On Painting the Alberta Prairie

The landscape of Alberta has been a reoccurring subject in my paintings for over twenty years. I find the subtle colours and undulating forms of the prairies deceptively simple. I never tire of discovering new nuances in the same scene. The prairies offer unique compositions since the clouds and patterns of colour in the sky can echo the forms of the land below.

On the Painting Where I Met George

I was drawn to this scene because of the delicate pale ribbon of a field that is close to the horizon. To appreciate it, the vast sky and wide field are necessary to the composition. This painting comes from a photograph I took when en route to Lethbridge coming from Cypress Hills on the far east side of Southern Alberta. On this particular stretch of road, people, buildings and vehicles are rare. So it is no surprise that when I stopped to take my photograph, a local farmer pulled over to make sure that I didn’t have car trouble. I told him that I had just paused to take a photograph and that I thought he was lucky to live in such a beautiful place. We talked about the record rainfall of a few weeks previous and I was reminded of talking to my grandfather, a farmer in Kent County, Ontario. For me, this isn’t just a painting of a field of winter wheat coming to life in the spring. It’s a story of people too.

< Back