My paintings are based on sketches and photographs that I have taken on both day and multiday trips into the backcountry. The landscapes I paint primarily range from British Columbia and Alberta north to Alaska, the Yukon and Northwest Territories. I find the diversity and wildness of the northwestern landscapes and the stories they tell captivating.
Over the years my sons presence with me on my trips has had a fantastic impact on my work. He has slowed me down and taught me how to remain in the moment so I am better able to really see and appreciate the small things that make our wilderness so special.
Because of the ever present challenges of adventuring alone with a little person (now a young man), pack weight, ever dwindling daylight, bugs and often uncooperative weather my camera has become an extension of my sketch book and an intrinsic part of my art practice. I always hike with it out, photographing the moments I want to paint and recording the landscapes that we move through when situations don’t allow me to pull out some charcoal and put marks to paper.
Working primarily in watercolour, my paintings are loose and full of mark making that plays with the translucent and flowing nature of the paint. I love the unpredictability of the medium and how it forces you to own your choices. To me working in watercolour is reminiscent of traveling in the landscapes I paint and the illusion of control we have over them. Like memories, my paintings are stories of a place and a moment in time. Some things standing out more than others and others fading, becoming more abstract the closer you look.
Working primarily in series, the individual paintings are moments from a particular trip into the back country, seen as a whole they are a cumulative landscape that tell a story, kilometre by kilometre, of place and time. Not all the moments painted are perfect or pretty. Each exist somewhere between fiction and reality, like a great fishing story.
