Selected paintings on canvas, and works on paper from 1992 to 2008
“Creating isn’t just something we like to do, it is something we need to do.” An elder in the town I grew up in, who was well known for hybridizing lilies, said this upon noticing creativity in me. It isn’t even that I “need” to be creative, I just do it. From a very young age I have broken down everything around me into shape, form, colour, line and texture.
Processing and reflecting human relationship, events, and the physical world around me with paint and pencil, and print based mediums makes my heart beat fast. Everything holds an unexpected beauty. What is so exciting for me is playing with different colour combinations and experimenting with different mediums, developing a visual language that communicate concepts of the human psyche that are difficult to communicate in written or spoken language. This is a small selection of early work before and at the beginning of my academic training.
BFA Undergraduate work from the University of Alberta
Painting
During undergrad studies, the paint studio experience was all about the exploration of the physicality of paint, application, and conceptual resolve. Employing various approaches to paint application and intuitive colour selection I began to discover the infinite possibilities of creating tension between fixed states and ephemeral moments on a two dimensional surface. Juxtaposition of organic and geometric forms became signifiers for natural and manmade systems. By being more considerate of abstraction, the dynamic between manmade and that which is natural became more heightened.
Printmaking
The processes involved in developing a plate slows down the creative process, allowing for complexities in conceptual ideas to develop in a calculated and methodical way. During my undergrad I started to develop themes around dreams, and place making. By employing fractured space, and considering deconstructed imagery as metaphor, the unreliability of memory, and the duality of realities as it relates to human experience became reoccurring ideas that were developed.
