The longer I paint the more the process becomes my teacher about life and, who I am. At the moment I’m experimenting with new ideas on smaller panels and canvas. 'Small’ is easily as complex as painting on a large surface, and gives me a fresh perspective to explore from.
Some of the new work has figurative leanings, as my interest in human entanglements with the environment and other species surfaces. Other paintings continue with my focus on form, colour and movement, always with the influence of my West Coast surroundings in the background.
Two exhibitions resulted from this collaboration with sculptural fibre artist Fiona Duthie. There was a natural flow and relationship between what we were saying in our respective art forms.
With these pieces I began to simplify certain areas of a piece, while manipulating the paint in other parts in a more complex way. Marks and forms emerge and come into dialogue. Like people some forms are comfortable beside each other, others are not. Editing and sacrifice play a more important role.
Lines imbedded in the paintings help construct the bones of the piece, each mark gives visual information that helps develop narrative. This is similar to a drawing where pencil marks of positioning are left in the piece. These paintings have more breathing space with a suggestion of calm, atmospheric space surrounding textured, vibrant colour.
Earlier (rain) forest has transformed into abstraction with these paintings as I begin to obscure landscape and deconstruct images in a cellular way. With various layers and shapes I’m deciding how recognizable nature’s characteristics will be. It’s a bit like walking a tightrope. To my eye this work feels figurative yet abstract.
My first encounter with the peaceful majesty of Tofino’s rainforest took my breath away. I had an immediate need to capture not what we see from the outside but some part of its essence. Finding the visual references to share that experience became the passionate focus of my work.
Drawings help my exploration of the layers of a forest, the canopy overhead, its understory, a tiny seedling sprouting at the base of an old- growth tree. The drawing feeds the idea of the painting, then I abstract those marks into it’s own unique life, decoded into textural, organic forms.
Ultimately the paintings themselves lead me to the center of this forest-world, with it’s own mossy smell and an energy I can sense but not actually see.