About the Artist

Artist Statement

I have always been drawn to artistic creations and beauty. My formal painting practise began over 25 years ago in watercolours through taking classes, workshops with renowned artists, reading and self-taught explorations. My practise has expanded to include acrylics and drawing materials. I interpret natural places or natural things that I’ve experienced using formal knowledge and intuitive process.

My whole life I have been visually impaired, my world has always felt a bit isolated and disturbing. I am an evaluator, my approach is a fine line discerning between structured discipline and intuitive freedom. Factors that connect my work are dynamic colour, texture, value, beauty, light and emotional expression. Sometimes I use unconventional colour combinations in my art but colour harmony is very important to me and each painting is evaluated with this criterion in mind.

Even as a little child, I have been a collector of the marvelous colourful curiosities I see all around me in nature: feathers, rocks, twigs, shells- all bits of textural heaven! Other collections of specialty papers, fabrics, photographs and ephemera often find their way into my collage mixed media paintings. Collage makes me very happy and gives me permission to be that free 6 yr old again, but with adult sensibilities.

It brings me joy when the viewer can bring themselves into “my picture” and respond with their own memories and experiences. My paintings are not site specific places, they are more universally inspired.

My work is informed by other artists that I admire including Gerald Brommer, Robert Genn, Nita Leland, Mary Todd Beam, Jack Reid, Zoltan Szabo, Winslow Homer, JMW Turner, Tom Thompson and the Group of Seven but I work very hard to express my own honest and authentic voice. I’ve been through many painful experiences and had to give up a lot to be true to myself, my collage work weaves the fabric of my life shape by shape, colour by colour.