Photo credit: Eric Moschopedis (cleverly shot through his binoculars unbeknownst to me).
Time, place, memory, relations, the movement of energy … the ephemeral nature of all things… poetry… These are the things that move me to work.
Hi :)
I am an interdisciplinary artist with a practice that includes public interventions, painting, collaborative drawing, photography and video.
Dialoguing directly with my environment in the form of interventions is something that comes naturally to me but I do maintain a love for the tradition of painting. Painting is an active process, a way of thinking about and working through things and it has become my primary form of note taking.
I am originally from rural Northern Ontario where the many lakes and wetlands of the Canadian Shield managed to imprint themselves on me. I carried the love of these places to Southern Alberta when my family moved here years ago. However, it wasn’t until 2015 that I began to explore the landscape along the Bow river, and study it through my work. All I knew when I started was that I really needed to be in that space along the water. This is where my focus remains today.
Alone in this landscape I am able to experience both solitude and intimacy. In order to express this extraordinary paradox, I take notes through traditional plein air painting and photography. I also recently began to play with video, making little actuality films, and on occasion, I do some sound recordings. It is in this manner that I am able to document the small movements, those small quiet openings that serve to create a direct and intimate connection with my environment.
I am currently located on the Confluence of the Bow and Elbow Rivers. It is situated in the very heart of Calgary, Canada on Treaty 7 land whose First Peoples I acknowledge with respect and gratitude for this marvellous place where I live and work. This includes the Blackfoot Confederacy of Siksika, Piikani, and Kanai First Nations, Tsuut’ina First Nation and the Stoney Nakoda (including the Chiniki, Bearspaw and Wesley First Nations), as well as the Métis Nation of Alberta Region III.
If you are at all interested in reading a few things I have to say about working on the river, please read the book Water Rites, a truly fantastic collection of art and writing about water edited by Professor James Ellis and a publication of the Calgary Institute for Humanities.