Current Events: work proceeds
Projects:
Over time, it has turned out that journeys turn into painting projects or bodies of work. Sometimes it is difficult to move on from painting an experience before the next one comes along, and occasionally I will return and add to a body of work. I have included here the larger and more notable projects and events. To view the gallery of paintings for any project please click on the image, or you can go straight to the Paintings page.
Thank you to Willock and Sax Gallery in Banff Alberta for their hospitality at the opening reception October 26th 2019 for a solo exhibition of some small landscapes painted from my travels.
I am so proud to have been granted a Canada Council Explore and Create Grant . It supported my recent Residency in New Mexico and the development of New Work to come over the next year.
A Solo Exhibition at the Yukon Arts Centre March - May 2019 included work based on the Arctic Circle Residency. The paintings have been executed over several years culminating with the production of several large scale paintings and the creation of a photo based interactive installation made with the support of a Yukon Advanced Artist Award. My friend and fellow artist Kaisu Koivisto whom I met on the Arctic Circle Residency had an adjacent show "Topophiia". It is always wonderful to get to see a body of work up and all together.
If you are interested in reading more about this exhibition here is my Artist Statement, and for further interest, a review essay by Corinna Cook about the painting "I am Here".
From September through December 2018 I had the pleasure to travel to Taos New Mexico to participate in the Helene Wurlitzer Artist Residency. This was an amazing opportunity to think and experiment and find clarity of focus as I embark upon creating a new body of work. The landscape and community and fellow artist residents made for a supportive and simulating environment. I can only describe my time there as magical.
In April 2018 I presented my paintings from the Arctic Circle Residency in Montreal during the Spring Nordic Festival. A wonderful experience to network with academics, artists and people involved in sharing cultural aspects of Northern countries. Thank you to the Canada Council for travel funding to attend at this event.
Four of my Arctic Circle paintings were exhibited the Noyes Museum of Art in New Jersey (May 2015 - January 2016) with work from several fellow participants from The Arctic Circle Residency in Svalbard. It was wonderful to attend the discussion panel event and reconnect with some of the other artists.
I am very proud to have a painting in the Canadian Foreign Affairs Permanent Collection, it is displayed in the Queen Elizabeth Atrium on the first floor of Canada House.
The Canada House website shows the complete collection and information about the new building, http://www.canadahousecollection.co.uk/
Following my Arctic Circle adventure, I attended the Banff Centre for a thematic Residency (Winterjourney 2014) for a period of focus to start this body of work.
Solo Exhibition at the Yukon Art Centre bringing together paintings from three National Parks that touch the outer edges of Canada; Ivvavik National Park Yukon, Gros Morne National Park Newfoundland and Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve and Heritage Site Haida Gwaii.
Because of their locations at the outer edges of our country, plus two of them inaccessible by road, these are parks that few Canadians get to see, as a participant in two Artist in the Park Residencies and one self directed excursion, I had the opportunity to explore (and fall in love with) these geographically and culturally diverse areas.
This International Residency brought 27 artists from 11 different countries together for three weeks in the autumn of 2013 to experience the International Territory of Svalbard, also known as Spitsbergen. We traveled by tall ship amidst this archipelago of islands north of Norway, approximately 900 km from the north pole. This was such a unique experience, and one that had a profound impact on me. I endeavoured to experience the new landscape with installations both on land and the ship with an underlying interest in historical mapping/navigation; this led to a more philosophical investigation of not just where I was in that physical space, but was it okay to be there. Questions I looked to think/paint through in an exploratory manner.
I gratefully thank the Yukon Advanced Artist Award and the Canada Council for support funding for this Residency.
For more information about the Arctic Circle Residency visit www.thearcticcircle.org
This special Park comprises the southern half of the archipelago of Haida Gwaii, formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands, off the West coast of Canada. This landscape is so different to what I am used to - forests so tall and deep that I was inside the landscape instead of on it. A place of quiet power, a veritable Shangri-La of coastal beauty with its' soft grays of misty mornings, ocean blues and greens, seaweed and kelp in orange and gold, whales and deer, sunshine, halibut and crab for dinner.
And then there were the old Haida villages. Paintings by Emily Carr and the Jade Canoe sculpture by Bill Reid were my reference points to Haida culture before I arrived, but the firsthand experience emphasized change and the passing of time. The images in my mind were 100 years old and a hungry rain forest has been at work since. The old totems and house sites are allowed to make their natural progression back to the earth and a dignified vigil is kept by the Haida watchmen and women who take turns staying at the sites, supervising and sharing their cultural history with the visitors who come. At first I was quite surprised and saddened that the villages were being "lost", but I came to respect this decision by a people who choose to focus on rebuilding a living culture. New poles are being carved and new stories will be told.
I was very pleased to show the early work from this experience at the Haida Gwaii Museum, in Skidegate, Haida Gwaii B.C., September 2010.
In the summer of 2009, I visited Ivvavik National park in the northern-most part of the Yukon Territory along with five other artists. We flew in from Inuvik N.W.T. and camped for ten days at the Park headquarters where an old mining operation is being reclaimed. Here I found myself drawn into rolling alpine mountains cut by the Firth River on its final stretch to the Beaufort Sea, a landscape mostly above treeline, rocky and severe, yet home to so many delicate wildflowers.
The area is imprinted with the presence of past inhabitants; the braided trails of the Porqupine Caribou Herd traversing the landscape, the archeological sites from the Inuvialuit people who traditionally moved though this area and who co-manage the Park area today, and various artifacts, from old tools to a large excavator left from the now defunct mine.
Surprisingly, for such a remote area it was a pretty busy place. Several Biologists were there doing insect research. Two rafting groups came through, (one taking us for a joy-ride downriver for a bit!) Another group of Scientists doing bear research dropped in (by plane), as did a group of Park Administrators for a meeting. However, with a little elevation gain, we were, as a map would indicate, as far from civilization as you can get.
This Artist in the Park Residency is based out of Woody Point Newfoundland, I spent 6 weeks exploring and painting the Gros Morne Park and surrounding area. I was there in September /October of 2008, the tourist season was over, so it was quiet and the colours turning to fall. I felt the past here, time was in the landscape and the salt air... I loved how much I could get out to walk and I really felt good about the work I made here.
The Tatshenshini River is a spectacular river that runs through the largest bio-preserve in the world. After leaving the Yukon, the river flows through northern British Columbia, then feeds into the Alsek River, passes through Alsek Lake with it's giant freshwater glaciers, before ending in the Gulf of Alaska.
On a two week rafting trip with day hikes up into the alpine, I experienced more beauty that I can paint, (but I will try). Highlights of this trip were hiking up Sediments Creek , building a temporary sweat hut on the beach of Alsek Lake - and the accompanied plunge into icy Alsek Lake.
In the summer of 2009, I visited Ivvavik National park in the northern-most part of the Yukon Territory along with five other artists. We flew in from Inuvik N.W.T. and camped for ten days at the Park headquarters where an old mining operation is being reclaimed. Here I found myself drawn into rolling alpine mountains cut by the Firth River on its final stretch to the Beaufort Sea, a landscape mostly above treeline, rocky and severe, yet home to so many delicate wildflowers.
The area is imprinted with the presence of past inhabitants; the braided trails of the Porqupine Caribou Herd traversing the landscape, the archeological sites from the Inuvialuit people who traditionally moved though this area and who co-manage the Park area today, and various artifacts, from old tools to a large excavator left from the now defunct mine.
Surprisingly, for such a remote area it was a pretty busy place. Several Biologists were there doing insect research. Two rafting groups came through, (one taking us for a joy-ride downriver for a bit!) Another group of Scientists doing bear research dropped in (by plane), as did a group of Park Administrators for a meeting. However, with a little elevation gain, we were, as a map would indicate, as far from civilization as you can get.
The Burnside River flows north from Kathawachaga Lake in the Northwest Territories into Bathurst Inlet and the Beaufort Sea. I traveled through this amazing landscape by raft with Nahanni River Adventure Tours in the summer of 2003. I found the Barren Lands to be anything but barren; what appears sparse due to the absence of forest is abundantly rich with unique plant life, albeit close to the ground, and wildlife.
The trip coincided with the the spring migration of the Bathurst caribou herd, and their presence naturally invited grizzly bears and wolves to make their appearances too. There were also musk-ox, fox, bird life and various other little critters. As exciting as it was to have so many close up encounters with large numbers of wildlife, I found the landscape of this area incredibly calming; long days of light with little impeding your vision or your desire to walk into a vast rolling terrain brimming with wildflowers.
The 291 Film Co. produces an art documentary series called "Landscape as Muse" shown on Bravo, Knowledge Network and SCN. I was very happy to be featured along with other western Canadian artists in the 2006 series.
For three days the producer, his compact crew and I visited the White Pass area in southern Yukon for sketching/painting sessions and then upon returning to my studio, I worked with the material to produce some larger pieces. Admittedly, trying to concentrate on painting while a camera was pointed at me was difficult, as is trying to put into words something that isn't about language, but it was a great experience and I thank the crew for producing a really interesting series of programs.
For more information, visit 291 Film Company Inc.
In the summer of 2003, the Yukon Chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society organized three concurrent river trips, sending artists, writers, biologists, journalists and photographers from across the country, down three Yukon Rivers; the Wind, the Snake and the Bonnet Plume, all of which converge into the Peel River. I was lucky enough to experience the Bonnet Plume in a canoe (most of the participants were in rafts), and this made for a very intimate relationship with the river!
This effort to generate awareness and conservation of the Peel River Watershed, resulted in the production of a travelling art exhibition and the publication of a beautiful book called "Three Rivers: The Yukon's Great Boreal Wilderness".
My artist statement and inspiration for these paintings.
The Migration Series was my first large body of work after finishing my BFA. I had moved to the Yukon and was painting small oil landscapes when a friend asked for a painting that included wildlife. That initial painting was quite different from everything else and it was then that I started a shift to larger formats with acrylic paint in a more abstracted style, often using multiple panels. I am still moved by the seasons and migrations of my home Territory, and this particular series of paintings continues to influence my approach to painting, seeking out not just the visible, but imagined aspects of the workings of the natural environment.
While I was at a Residency at the Banff Centre to work on the Three Rivers Project, a poet named Robin Chapman came to see my presentation (which was largely the Migration Series), and she wrote a poem about the paintings. With her permission, I include it here for you.
In Jane's painting , the caribou
Carry light in their antlers,
Light in their hooves, circles of light
In their bodies, repeating the circle
Of light that never sets in the sky--
Threads of light link them to each other
In the river of animals traveling
A thousand Arctic miles.
Salmon leap up the rapids, carrying
Fire in their sides.