So like any parent.. I love all my children… err paintings… but there are some that have stories of note and reasons why I love them. My nephew Ben is working on a project for University where they had to write about the history of an artist of note… he got permission to use me as his subject. How cool right! So as I spent time detailing information on some paintings for him.. I thought you would enjoy this as well.
Bathhouse in Bhutan - This paintings is done from an approved reference from National Geographic Photographer Matthieu Paley. I reached out to get permission to use the reference because to me it looked like a renaissance painting. The social group setting where no one is interacting. The men are separated from the women. The splash of red next to the woman in yellow, who to me is the focal point of the entire piece. She stands as a center of power, a matriarch overseeing the room. The lines of the walls even all point to her. My personal addition to my painting over the reference photo was Matthieu's description of warmth coming in from the cold in Bhutan. As such I washed the entire canvas under the painting in bright orange so you get these little peaks of orange coming through that gives the viewer a natural unknown warmth without necessarily knowing where it comes from.
Nothing's Wrong - My most recent piece on this list is also one of my most surreal. My goal with this piece was primarily to reflect the world of stress and anxiety we all live in today and secondarily I was thinking about one of my "Art Parents" or one of the artists whose work influences me directly, Canadian artist, Mary Pratt. Mary frequently used everyday objects and reflective surfaces in her wonderful realistic works. I wanted to use tinfoil as a direct homage to her.
Shake it up - This is a fun energetic piece with frenetic thick splattered paint emulating the beer exploding from the can. The energy in the piece is reflected both by the scene but also the model, who is a photographer and model with the same level of effervescent energy, Jessica Christian. She goes by @lovesquish on instagram.
Sable Island Horses - This piece has a lot to it in that it was my 1st every painting with horses. My 1st painting that was submitted to the Isaac's way Auction. Finally it was my 1st painting where I built an original image from multiple sources of reference to create a unique painting that stands as it's own entity. This was fairly early into my painting career.. perhaps 6 months in. It was the 1st time I started understanding my draw to "water, life and light"
Fully Completely - This is the 2nd of 3 paintings I've done of the late Canadian lead singer of the Tragically Hip, Gord Downie. I spent 4 years in the 90's touring with a band around the maritimes and we did a lot of Tragically hip covers. I always loved Gord's music and still feel is Canada's Poet. This painting was special as it was the 1st time I went outside the "plan" of the painting and made choices as I was painting it to vary the composition. I always do a "sketch" under painting in burnt umber and white where I basically "draw" my painting in monochrome colours to get proportions and value's correct before I paint over it all. The paint is wet and runny and as it ran down the canvas, it looked to me like roots.. and how he was rooted to all Canadians. I decided it was a part of the painting that had to stay. That I wasn't supposed to paint over it. Then as I started to do the background in blue... something in my head said, "Blue is when he was here... you have to fade up to white... now that he's gone". The main thing for me though is his expression... which even after a year after I painted it... I can't unpack. A man who is doing what he loves... knowing he has a limited amount of time... is it happiness... content... acceptance.... I love not really knowing.