Artist Statement

We do not descend but rise from our histories. If cut open, memory, would resemble
a cross section of the earth’s core,
a table of geographical time.’  excerpt from ‘Lake of Two Rivers’ by Anne Michaels

The wonderful thing about being a painter is that painting can take you anywhere. I have thrown myself into many ‘styles’ throughout my practice. Still life, abstract, figurative, landscape. All have excited me at one time or another and given me the challenges I needed to keep going.

Throughout most of my time in Cromarty, I have been a landscape painter. Then in 2019 I began searching for another direction, I just wasn’t sure what that was going to be. 

At that time my studio was closed for 4 months. Since I couldn’t paint, I decided to do more in depth research than I had done in a long time. Landscape still loomed large for me, but once the studio opened again something began to shift in my work and with an exhibition deadline in Inverness to spur me on, I became fully committed to trying something new.

Even though the paintings were elements of landscape, I began inserting figures. These figures were from past memories and photos of my Canadian upbringing. This collection of works became the exhibition ‘Chemical Valley Girl’. By the time I had completed the works and was about to open my exhibition, we were in lockdown, that very month! ’Chemical Valley Girl’ had to go online. This was just the beginning as I continued to explore my Canadian memories.

As I sift through old photos, it is a way of connecting with my family. There is at once a strangeness and a familiarity that keeps me intrigued.

These works are my most personal yet and it is through the act of painting and emotional connection that each one becomes its own layered narrative; a reflection of the past, the moment caught in time and my life since then.