Settled snow reminds me to look, many times, slowly. Snow is not white; it is sapphire and mint and butter and ivory. It is the iridescence of Good Witch Glenda’s gown and the dull weft of an old wool coat. Painting snow requires me to forget any notion of white at all.
One day, the beautiful and blasé female I’d painted suggested she was not so serene after all. And that perhaps instead of being rendered, being represented, being marked, she might like to render and represent and mark. And so this is what happened.
Maybe you remember sitting on the beach at English Bay one evening while the sun and people faded away, as the towers and bridge began to glow, when you watched the city turn into a dazzling show of brilliant jewels splayed out against the velvet night sky. Maybe you sat beside someone you loved and they saw that too.
A reflection glimmers, half-formed, barely holding shape. Copper-gold like ancient treasure adorns her, and is her, life statue-still for a bare moment.
Layers of looks look back at you. A curse, a suggestion, a vow. In revolutionary stance, all her softness becomes a power source, and you don’t dare turn away.
There is a dogwood tree in my front yard And every May it turns me into The envy of my street. Thirty feet high of brilliant white flowers Like clusters of butterflies glowing at nightfall. The neighbours say to me – in reverent tones For I am the Keeper of the Dogwood – That it has never bloomed so much as this year. Every May they say that. The other eleven months, my dogwood looks unremarkable, And the neighbours only frown as they walk past my yard, Tugging at their children and husbands who linger too long.
To paint a figure is to try to capture; and I liked the idea that this woman was eluding the grasp of both artist and viewer. A form of subversive rebellion. Swipes of paint erase detail, she threatens to disappear. And in losing her form, her agency is revealed – she is the thief at work here.
In dreams, everything is possible and nothing needs explaining. Of course the moon nests herself in a silver-blue lake. Of course she is the mother of conifers. Of course you could waltz in the light her shadow casts.
A setting sun streaks and glitters white-gold on ocean water, as silver-blue dusk lowers herself. A single boat glides its way, whether home to rest or off for an intrepid evening sail left ambiguous.
The firm planes of a back and sweet contrast of a shy foot. A woman’s face angled in beautiful pride, a tension of secretive poise and the possibility of a slow turn to reveal.
Out of the blue-grey shadows of dense forest a tawny-leaved tree declares itself. The imperfect mirror of the dark water shows bright traces of gold amid its own reflective brilliance of aquamarine dappling.
Low light glances off rockpiles along a serene riverbank, rich hits of burnt umber and gold. Across the water, eerie columns and smoky sky suggest a dark urban embrace, chilling yet beautiful nonetheless.
I knew early what would be required. I was not certain I would succeed. Perhaps some phenomena, such as the essence of nobility, are impossible to capture in full, and our artistic strivings are our beautiful failures. Commissioned portrait.
Burn in the Forest festival is a village created, inhabited, and whisked away in five days, a coming together that brings the best of humanity - our capacity for innovation, artistry, celebration, and gorgeous absurdity.
Lost in the ease of the body, lost in the swell of a feeling, lost in an idea wandering in vague patterns like markings on the floor. While she may appear whole and wholly there, she is in fact, quite lost.
There’s a quality of light some days, it’s more fragile, it aches a little…a reminder that everything slips away, but – for now – this is here and so are you.
Her tattoo traces the flex of her spine, the structure that permits all our postures and fortresses our shrieking electricity. We are such miracles. Commissioned portrait.
Umbrellas mushroom in the summer sun at the stretch of tawny sand where everyone is lost in paradise and the city’s broken dreams wait for another day.
A complex interplay of qualities. I see strength in ribbons of ink around biceps and sweetness in a relaxed belly and elegance in open legs. Power at rest.
Underpainting of azo gold is a brilliant stretch of sand coloured by the lazy warm light. Dazzling gemstone water grazes the shoreline and stretches off to a hazy horizon line. Impossibly burnished clouds frame the sky above whispers of boats.
The sun sets, boats seem to come to rest. Almost-black paint renders charred edges, framing a moment of calm, an attempt to still. Yet long lineations suggest a haze, a shimmer, things not quite fixed.
