Animal artworks
Artist Statement
Contemporary post-modern culture, painting from observation, and experimenting with negative pictorial space are all crucial to my paintings. In the search for beauty and artistic expression, my choice of the portrait genre is fitting and historically it has been a medium for expressing unique personalities and emotions.
I'm interested in examining the structures surrounding adopting a domestic pet, who is a living soul that we reach out to and invite into our life - an interspecies adoption. Something I care deeply about is that a good quality of life matters as much to an animal as it does to us. As an adoptee, it feels natural to be drawn to domestic pets, thinking about the transformative bond that forms from the need to be cared for by others.
My depictions of animals attempt to convey something intangible; the essence of an animals playfulness, energy, spirit, kindness, and humanity. My process begins with projecting a photo of the subject onto canvas, and doing a loose sketch. Then I add expressive colours, abstract shapes, and textures around the animal. The message I'm trying to convey to the viewer is giving a voice to the voiceless, what would that animal want to express that they can't in words.
Abstracts
Images in Motion
My newest series of works Images in Motion on Highway 11 document the idea of viewing images inmotion while on Highway 11 to as far as Kirkland Lake and back. This is a trip Ive taken numerous times up a highway known as the worlds longest street, running from Toronto to Rainy River West of Thunder Bay. My process is to take photographs of images in each passing town from the car while its in motion, and base the paintings on these photographs. Whether its majestic rock formations in Muskoka or canoes lined up for sale in South River, the works are seen from the viewers perspective becoming their own subjective nostalgic interpretation based on their own personal experiences with viewing objects in motion. Static images seen in motion seem to take on different meanings and the experience of memory and emotion can be altered. There is something about moving images that provoke a variety of emotions and experiences: a eureka moment (seeing something interesting jumping out at you), reminiscing (returning back to a home town), regret (saying goodbye and feeling further away from a loved one), excitement (arriving at a place where youve never been before), and Void (staring into the blurry images with your thoughts moving just as fast as the passing images).