People ask why I keep painting the North. Short answer: it’s where I live. Longer answer: it keeps changing.
Why I paint is even simpler than that: I’d paint even if no one saw the work or bought it. I have to; it’s a creative drive. But the goal with this body of work is to show you the Yukon as I see it. If I can show you what I see, and it resonates with you, then it’s done its job, and so have I.
When I lived off-grid, days were measured by what needed doing: checking the line, fixing a runner, hauling wood. Painting fit in the gaps. That taught me to be direct. No fussing. Put down the shapes. Get the light right. Leave it alone.
I still work that way. A stand of poplar doesn’t need my help to be something else. It needs me to see it as it is, and get it down before the clouds shift or the colour drops out. These days my marks are simpler and cleaner. Fewer moves. Faster hand.
I hope you’ll see the evolution of the last few years in my upcoming show, Of This Place. It brings new work together with paintings from recent years—many that have never seen the light of day. Not because they fell short, but because the next canvas came fast. This show is different for me: it isn’t only “fresh paint,” it’s time laid beside place.
In Of This Place, I pulled canvases from different years and set them side by side. Some were made yesterday, some waited longer. The date doesn’t matter. What matters is whether the painting still sings when I look at it now.
Distance lets me see what’s necessary and what’s noise. But time is part of the studio, too. Some pieces flow so easily into existence, while others need to be put away—if I keep them out, I’ll pick them apart. This is a part of why I have so many paintings that have yet to be seen.
Preparing for this show meant revisiting racks of canvases I hadn’t touched in years. Looking things over with fresh eyes. Cleaning edges. I don’t rework my older pieces to match today, so instead, I had to ask whether a collection of paintings belonged in the same conversation, and if the answer was yes, then what was the conversation they were having?
Of This Place isn’t so much a theme, it’s my practice. It’s about the land, and it’s also about time spent looking at it. A painting made years ago can sit next to one made this month if they were both painted with the same attention. New isn’t better. True is better.
If what I saw then—and what I see now—comes across when you stand in front of these paintings, that’s enough for me.
