This showing of new work at Willock and Sax Gallery in Banff Alberta, will run from October 31st through to November 8th. I will be in attendance at the reception on the 31st from 1:00- 3:00 PM.
“What an artist is trying to do for people is bring them closer to something, because of course art is about sharing. You wouldn't be an artist unless you wanted to share an experience, a thought.” David Hockney
Artist’s Statement Hanging on the walls of this gallery, my paintings, either precisely rendered or stylized, are a sharing of what I love: memories of beautiful times and places, and, because visual art is a language, a sharing of ideas and perspectives. On the off chance however, that you’re curious as to the ‘why?’ that lies behind what I do, here are some of the reasons:
Why Paint? I’m a painter today because of a book my mother brought home for me when I was home sick from kindergarten: Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans. i realized then, clearly, that what brought those wonderful watercolour and ink paintings into being could only have been magic. In my early teens I saw, and then returned many times to look at, the Pissarro painting Peupliers, temps gris, Éragny,. from those viewings I learned both that I wanted to paint, and that the depiction of of a place of natural beauty could itself be an object of beauty. In 1985, I attended a show at the British Museum: British Landscape Watercolours 1600-1860, and when I left the museum, all I wanted to do in life was paint watercolour landscapes. After producing and selling 33 large watercolours I turned to acrylics as a way of obtaining deeper, more saturated colours.
Why Landscape? When I was six our house was on the very edge of a small village with countryside and farms to the south and west. I was told, every day, to “go outside and play”. This struck me at the time, and still does today, as very, very good advice. I was also told (many times) by my mother and grandmother that I must NEVER EVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES go into the forest that lay across a field to the south. So, alone and curious, I walked across the field, passed through the sunlit glades on the edge of the wood and entered a cool, deep green cathedral. It was the most beautiful place I had ever seen in my life, and with that moment came the realization that this world held very very beautiful places. From that point on I have sought out, travelled through, and been physically moved by, places of great natural beauty: places where you can hear the trees speak and the stars sing. First by foot and by bicycle, and subsequently from the age of 16 on, by hiking, wilderness canoe tripping, backpacking, mountaineering and skiing.
Why Mountains? Mountains and waterways are the very best places to play. Beauty is there in sweeping vistas, in middle distances, and in close encounters, And so we made “… inroads into distant vales, and long Excursions far away among the hills, …on the cool green ground, Or in the woods, or near a river side, Or by some shady fountain, while soft airs Among the leaves were stirring, and the sun Unfelt, shone sweetly round us in our joy.” W. Wordsworth