Living Winter I 30x40

Acrylic on canvas, slim black frame

30 x 40

Living Winter I and Living Winter II are responses to the winter landscapes in Campbell Valley Park and Fort Langley. The fascinating patterns and shapes in the forest and at the Fort were unexpected; that even in the deep cold of winter, the woods and fields were filled with beauty. Snow lay in meandering masses, stark white against the emerald sword ferns and the deep brown leafy debris. Oak and cedar pushed their mossy limbs up against a white sky as small birds fluttered among them. I saw pattern and rhythm everywhere and it made me think about painting the landscape in a manner as abstracted as the forms I saw there. I wanted to recreate what I saw in an even more intangible way, flattening it and focusing on contrast, shape and line.

As I thought about simplifying and stylizing the forms I saw, it made me wonder if this is how indigenous peoples created their distinctive designs; if their ovoids and u-forms came from the natural world around them. I researched art from the Coast Salish peoples who are from the Langley area, and I found designs of creatures that lived in the environments that I visited, such as mallards, frogs, squirrels and chickadees. I chose individual shapes from these designs, and understanding that I am a settler in this landscape, I subtly and respectfully returned them to the woods where they came from as a tribute to the First Nations who were here before I was.