Energy. Elemental. In flux.
Everything is energy in flux. This includes us, and everything around us. Even that which feels solid and stable is in constant motion, aways changing. Awareness of this ongoing state of flux – even when, and maybe especially when, the moment feels overwhelmingly important and heavy – is a way to connect more deeply to an important aspect of reality. This holds true for me in life, in work, and in painting.
I paint my experience of the ongoing energy flow, this state of flux we’re always in: its elemental nature, its momentariness, and the possibilities it holds for the next moment. Calligraphic lines, layers, value contrast and elemental colour echo the energy imprint of a moment – whether slow-moving or a mere flash, chaotic or elegant, disturbing or beautiful.
In my painting I draw on imagery from elemental forces – water, air, fire, earth. As a result, I see my painting as a way to help ground us in the reality of our lives here and now as physical beings, and at the same time as it places us in the larger flow of energy through time. It helps us see both the life-giving and life-destroying nature of these elements. It helps us notice how the constants shifts among these elemental forces shape the seasons.
Looking at the world as a play amongst these elemental forces is also a way to respond to the changes in our natural world. It is our actions that have in so many ways disrupted the relationships amongst these elements, disruptions that are manifesting as a climate crisis and cecological degradation. By painting the interplay amonst these forces I hope to bring awareness to how integral they are to life, and to how they have become disrupted. And to inspire a sense of commitment to do what we can to maintain the conditions for life.
Language, lines, layers, and life
Living and working in Toronto, Canada, I started a committed art practice in 2022, alongside my ongoing work as an executive coach.
As an artist, I see painting as an extension of the practice of being in conversation – conversation with myself, with the world, and with others. I paint in response to the world I find myself in, as a way of making sense of the experience, and as a way of shaping my engagement with the world.
I share my art as an offer to others to help them make sense of their world – maybe by making them pause, by redirecting their attention, or triggering personal memories and associations that might help shape their experience of their world.
Using the visual language of painting builds on a lifetime of working with language as a means of communication, and a method for conversation. As a linguist, I explored the structure of language and its use to communicate. As executive coach (and coach educator) I explore and use collaborative conversation and language as a medium for generating insights and learning, for supporting sense-making. Language has always been for me about integrating logic and imagination, words and images, precision and poetry. As an abstract painter, the metaphoric and the poetic, and the imaginative, are now the main factors in my response to the world. In many ways, then, painting feels like a natural extension of my path so far. Simply a new way to be in conversation.
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