Spotlight On: Landscape Artists
The second instalment in our Spotlight series features the incredible collection of artists we work with that have chosen to reflect the beauty of nature and the Canadian landscape as their primary subject matter. Some more traditionally, and some more abstractly than others, each artist manages to capture the landscape in their own uniquely individual way. Especially now we love that these pieces seem to take us away, and enjoy hearing the artists’ thoughts on their work and their favourite locations to paint. We hope you do too.
Kyle Sorensen
"There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove traces of reality" - Pablo Picasso
I’ve always been fascinated at how the human mind can recall a place, or a thing, or a time… simply by being exposed to familiar shapes and colours that mimic these memories. Blue will forever remind me of my summers spent cottaging on Georgian Bay. Orange will always remind me of the golden hour just before dusk.
I always begin my process with a place. A place that I am drawn to for whatever reason; sometimes it might be my interest in how the waves crash against shoreline, or perhaps the way the sun sparkles on the blue water. I’ll snap a photo with my camera and revisit these images later in my studio where my mind will begin to reduce the image into various geometric shapes and colours...removing the traces of reality. It is by reducing the image to various intersecting planes that you are left with an abstract image of where you once were, or how you felt when you witnessed this place.
Sara Alex Mullen
I paint contemporary landscapes with bold colours and expressive strokes. I like painting alla prima (wet on wet) with thick oil paint using brushes, palette knifes, and carving tools. My favourite locations to paint are Ontario or Quebec lake scenes in cottage country or provincial parks. I'm drawn to trees at the waters edge and enjoy interpreting reflections and movement of light along the water. I paint loosely from photographs and impressions of places I've been.
explore Sara’s work
Tracy Bultje
The natural world is a space of immersion, conversation and resolution. I am drawn into the chaos of converging shape and colour, residing there in moments of contemplation. The dialogue between streams of light and the murky, dark places parallel the struggles that distress so much of our lives. The natural world collides with the spiritual world. Through a lens of faith and hope, I make sense of the chaos and arrive into a testament of order.
I present a resolution in the form of a landscape imbued with poetic metaphors for the human condition. Colour is my voice. Patterns that emerge demonstrate the refinement of chaos into order.
My painting represents an idealized form of the natural world seen through a filter of culture and beliefs.
Dan Ryan
Gabriella Collier
"Art is not what you see, but what you make others see" -Edward Degas
It’s the elusive quality of nature that inspires and challenges me.
Wide open spaces are my preferred choice of scenery, such as big skies or fields that fade into the horizon.
With each painting, I attempt to translate that first inspiring moment in nature onto canvas. I combine semi-abstract and realism into my work to enable the viewer to form the same experience and a personal connection to the painting.
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Sheila Davis
I am inspired by wild forests. Most of my inspiration come from Bark Lake, up near the East Haliburton highlands. I belong to a group who spends 2-3 weekend a year there. Painting and talking art. Totally immersed in nature. Long hikes or snow shoeing with camera in hand. Then back to the studio to get it down on the surface. Or if the mood strikes me and the bugs aren’t bad I’ll set up outside to paint plein air and soak it all in.
Hope to get back there this fall.
explore Sheila’s work
Iosif Derecichei
Steven Nederveen
Ian Varney
On my first Spring Break from Art School, a stunning Kayak trip of The Hente River, Tasmania, saw me in a landscape which was truly magical. I have not forgotten the beauty of that trip. Back in class, images of travelling down a river, along a coastline, or heading towards a channel, kept emerging. Unstoppable. When I expressed my frustration that everything I painted turned into a landscape, my Instructor said “Just keep painting,...if it has to come out, then just let it”. Many years later, it continues to do so.
Susan Wallis
My muse is the Canadian landscape. The vast fields, forests and lakescapes of Canada provide endless inspiration. Although traditional in subject manner my approach is that of simplicity. I believe strongly that a painting should depict the act of seeing, not the object seen. I strive to depict the essence of a landscape. I offer through my paintings an atmospheric suggestion of possibility or the probability of the moment. It is what I don’t depict, the parts I leave out that is sometimes the most important element of my work. These ‘openings’ invite the viewer to participate by joining the colours and images with their own imagination.
I often paint from memory, as the restrictions of the encaustic medium do not allow for plein air painting. Imprinted in my memory are the changing colours of the seasons, the glistening of the sun on the lake’s surface, the starkness of the birch tree’s bark. I have an acute visual memory for colours and their combinations, which I feel is the key to my work.
Living in a bucolic farming community in Eastern Ontario, I paint where I live. The view from my studio window of the East Lake provide endless inspiration. My craving for beauty, a vital function for the human soul takes me on a journey of seeing. A journey that alerts the eye and humbles the hand.
Donna Andreychuk
Nina Cherney
Andrew Peycha
As a painter I believe having a style is important! Over the last 20 years I have developed a style that is very distinct. It has evolved into the idea of breaking up a space with a linear grid and placing colour and values beside each other to create an object. By doing this linear grid on the landscape it creates an abstract illusion of the subject.
Lately my favourite thing to paint is Georgian Bay because I am on it for most of the summer! Also painting mountains have been an interest for me as I feel it lends well to my style. However, put me in a forest and I could paint there for years!
I love painting the bay, mountains, and forests because it gives me a sense of peace as I can picture being there. Also I find it intriguing to paint such unorganized subjects in an organized grid.
Andrea Ross
I have had a lifetime of painting the colours and shapes found in nature as defined by light and shadow. My oil paintings are impressions of the rugged shapes, forms and descriptions that come with intimate exploration of natural shorelines. I use lively brush strokes on toned, stretched, gallery canvas. My paintings are somewhat traditional in that there is a clear depiction of a landscape in an impressionistic style.
I am very fortunate to live on Skeleton Lake in Muskoka and have easy access to Algonquin Park and Georgian Bay where I can explore and my passion to paint natural shorelines. I love to paint the interaction between the water and the shoreline through all seasons.
Natural shorelines are places where life occurs so abundantly but is under the most pressure from development. By paintings these rugged, unspoiled locations I feel I may be helping to foster a feeling of guardianship where we all help to preserve these pristine areas for future generations.
Tanya Kirouac
From the melting snow in a roadside streams on daily walks to the epic skies before or after a powerful storm, my inspiration is found in the everyday. For some these mundane scenes of farm fiends in the golden hour or the lively marshes we drive past daily go unnoticed. These moments speak to me in their quiet intensity and I capture in my memory. Be it the colour, mood, or light, to be explored later in my work. The language of these places build in my archives and it is their story that I tell.
Eric McCully
I’m not a traditional landscape painter. My paintings are more atmospheric landscapes. Lots of people say they are intuitive painters. All I know is I sit in front of a canvas and paint. The only thing planned is my paint. The colours the tones but the successful paintings are the ones were it goes it’s own way and I follow along with it. I know it’s finished and worth showing if I can walk into it and be happy.
Galen Felde
Shane Norrie
Gina Sarro
In my most recent work, I paint vast, serene landscapes focussing on simplicity and calm, while simultaneously searching for how to document our shared life experiences. My intention is to offer an abstracted landscape sanctuary where we can go to breathe and be still during these complicated times. While painting, I am also looking at my own internal landscape, sourcing its connection to our shared human spirit. While the literal subject of my work is the pristine landscape, inspired by the West Coast of BC where I currently live; the Rocky Mountains where I grew up; and the Prairies where I was born, I aim to document moments in time, and memories to hold onto within my work. The moments build our individual story, and I like to paint precise geometric lines into and on top of the abstracted landscape to capture these defining times.
Maggie Shepherd
Jacquelyn Sloane Siklos
Valerie Ryan
There is nothing like finding a vista. An amazing view to try to capture in paint. I love to be outdoors and paint. The mark making and brushstrokes are more dynamic. I feel freer and it is fun. Sadly, I can't do that all the time. Winter is a major hurdle. Aging is another. The pandemic has been an obstacle.
Last spring, when you finally go out and sit on a park bench. I ventured beyond my backyard. You do cause a bit of a spectacle as you paint outdoors. People always want to look over your shoulder. This time around, I had to " social distance" from my own work as a bystander took a look. From a two meter distance she chimed “ I knew it would be good.”
I am lucky to live in the beautiful city of Ottawa. I live near the Central Experimental Farm and it provides me with a wide open space to view cloud formations. I imagine I am Turner or Constable “skying”, a turn created at the time to denote a painting just of clouds.
I, also, love to paint by the Rideau Canal and the Ottawa River. Water offers an interesting surface to experiment with brushstrokes and colour. I am attracted to areas of the river where there are sailing clubs. The tall sails give a needed vertical to a motif that is so horizontally base.
I do like to travel. The first thin , I pack is my watercolours. I filll little sketchbooks with quick notations. I do use photos, but the sketches give me greater ideas to apply the paint freely.
From time to time, I may find a magazine or newspaper photo to paint. It is a way to keep going through bad weather, both literally and figuratively. It is important to keep painting. Work comes from work.
Dana Cowie
The Owen Sound area is made up mostly of farmlands, hiking trails and beaches (and a lot of snow!). I live in town but a short drive and I'm surrounded by nature. We live right in the middle of Lake Huron and Georgian Bay so there is plenty of inspiration here. The culture of my community is very outdoorsy. Most of my friends like to hike, camp, skate, ski, swim etc. As I grew up in the city (Toronto and Hamilton) I find it exciting to embrace this new lifestyle. The landscape is there for me to take in ideas for my work. My husband is a real estate photographer and often photographs areas like Bognor, Tara, Tobermory etc. for me as reference images. Sometimes we will be on a drive and I ask him to stop so I can document a landscape that will make it's way into my work. I'm so grateful to him!
My other landscape of interest is part of my imagination. I've recently been working on my family tree and have found areas of Scotland and England that are exciting as my ancestors immigrated to Canada from there between the 1700's and 1945. The areas of Coll & Tiree, Scotland where my great-great grandparents lived are subject to some of my work. So with local areas and sometimes places that I hope to go to one day, I find lots of ideas to form my work. I find myself most inspired by historical artists and study art of different periods. It helps me to think about my palettes and awaken new ideas in my work.
In my childhood, my mother made most of my clothes and liked to reupholster our furniture so textiles have been something I've always be surrounded with. They affect my work a great deal. My paintings are impasto which means the paint is thick with visible marks. So, I am an easel painter in the traditional sense. In fact, my Grandmother was a painter too and gave me her 1940's easel and materials when I was a teenager. I use her tools and love the history of them. My palette tends to shift as I go from one painting to another. I mix all of my colours as I go and work in a loose and spontaneous fashion, building my image across the canvas as I go. I find that the act of painting is like a physical dance for me and quite spontaneous. Especially since I sing and listen to music as I work.
As a visual artist I get excited about growth in my practice and hope that my work brings healing, joy and peace to anyone who lives with them.