Romantic Plein Air and Abstracts
May 28-June 16, 2021
Artist Statement
In 1988, after receiving my College degree in Visual Fine Arts, I left the academic art world and chose to experience the rich underground art scene of the the street life in Montreal. I soon was on the search for an environment that would encourage artistic lifestyle in a nature setting. My quest took me to Tofino, in Clayoquot Sound. I lived in an abandoned draft dodger's cabin, deep in the old-growth forest, possessed by the spirit of Emily Carr, who wrote, "There is something bigger than fact: the underlying spirit, all it stands for, the mood, the vastness, the wildness. ‘’ This same spirit incubated my work’s mysticism and the desire to sense and interpret its reality.
It was while immersed in the natural vistas of Clayoquot that my inner landscape began to unfold. Nature was my school.
In 1995 I flew to Hawaii, where my Plein Air work matured and also where my ‘’innerscapes’’ emerged.
But Hawaii was not home. 10 years ago I returned to Quebec, partly to nurse my aging parents and partly because i was ready to become visible in the cultural landscapes of Quebec and Canada. Now, back to reclaim my Heart where i left her on the West Coast, i have settled on Salt Spring Island to share the incalculable bounty of romantic mysticism i feel for the land here.
While Plein Air painting is, to me, akin to a reverent pilgrim through cathedrals , my abstract expressionism/surrealism takes me on a profound venture where the landscapes coalesce with the innerscapes of my psyche.
