TERRAIN PROFILES
This series of landscape paintings are a departure from my usual work. They are about the absence of content. Taken from photographs I took while on pilgrimages to Alberta. ‘LACK’ are from a trip to visit my indigenous cousins in Northern Alberta. I was blown away by the big skies and empty country, a complete lack of anything. It changes perception, lets your brain breathe. Little things in the landscape like a fence post or a crow gain importance. Although one of the realizations while producing this work is the profound loneliness one feels on the road as well as in the studio.
The ’RAPESEED’ series are from a journey to Lacombe and Gull Lake, Alberta where my Mothers WASP family are from. That trip got me thinking about food supply. I noticed that all the produce there is grown in Mexico, China or the US. Nothing is local. Farmland there is used for oil derricks or alternately, rapeseed to produce oil. This monoculture extends to the culture itself. American big box stores and fast food restaurant chains., there weren’t many original or genuine businesses anywhere. And really the rest of Canada and N. America is headed in that direction too.