Point Pleasant Grocery, 18 x 36 Inches, 2010, Oil on Canvas

My new show of original oil paintings is now running at Secord Gallery in Halifax through December 20.  “Street Light” is the emphasis of this set of paintings. Please click on the following link for an article on this show by arts reporter Elissa Barnard of the Chronicle Herald.  http://thechronicleherald.ca/ArtsLife/1216062.html

The city is a backdrop to our lives.  As urban dwellers, we are constantly interacting with our cities and our interactions often reflect our openness to beauty.  Beauty is not necessarily conventional, but it is always personal and deeply felt. In my paintings, I attempt to create a portrait revealing contemporary life in this twenty-first century, but one that is not simply objectively realist.

Agricola Skyline, 18 x 36 Inches, 2010, Oil on Canvas

My expression in painting alludes to a sensibility similar to the 20^th century American painter, Edward Hopper. We share an appreciation of the urban backdrop and it’s ordinary, yet universal presence in our experience.  In my understanding, Hopper and I share a personal goal towards the revitalization and continuation of the realist tradition, even though we live (or lived) in times where there is a multiplicity of modes of expression, each with plenty of momentum.  Hopper worked at a time when Impressionism, Cubism and Expressionism had already taken very firm hold.  With his contemporaries like Robert Henri, George Luks, John Sloan, William Glackens and George Bellows, Hopper was able to connect to the ongoing allure of the city in contemporary life and these artist’s efforts formed a movement reflecting the values of their times.  My connection to this American School of painting has merged with my own feeling for painting.  I view my artistic output as a contemporary link in this chain of artists who have advanced representational painting using their urban backdrop as the motif.

Early Sunday Evening, 18 x 36 Inches, 2010, Oil on Canvas

I infuse my work with whatever nuances of light and mood I am feeling in response to the subject.  I have a deep connection to our city, this everyday world surrounding us with its rugged, worn and rusty beauty.  I look at my motifs with a certain intellectual and aesthetic independence.  I feel free to alter the subject matter as much as needed to bring the scene to the canvas.  Within my process, I’m interpreting select “things” and synthesizing them into a cohesive whole.  I’m able to do this through staging, lighting and composition.

Motel Office at Night, 24 x 36 Inches, 2010, Oil on Canvas

In relation to staging, I feel the elements of my motifs are there for me to move around like props in a play.  I direct my painting this way, like a film director arranges props on set to create workable camera angles. In my case, I’m moving telephone poles, buildings, cars, trees and such until I find compositions that hold together to bring out the essence of the subject.  If a chimney needs to be larger or smaller to satisfy a pictorial concern of mine, I simply adjust its’ scale and position to work in the painting, or I’m free to paint it out entirely if that feels best.

Neighborhood in Autumn, 40 x 30 Inches, 2010, Oil on Canvas

I look for motifs that reveal themselves through light and cohesive color.  I am drawn to the low-angled, northern light of this place.  I appreciate the qualities of light at transition times of day when there is still a hint of light in the sky contrasted with the urban lighting of streetlights, signs and windows.  My urban paintings are filled with examples of this transitional light.  In my view, this light symbolizes continual transition. Things never stay the same.

Esquire Coffee Shop, 20 x 30 Inches, 2010, Oil on Canvas

Warm Summer Rain, 24 x36 Inches, 2010, Oil on Canvas

The Wind Around Here

My show of new oil paintings titled “Luminosity”, opens Aug. 1 from 1-4 at Jo Beale Gallery in Peggy’s Cove, Nova Scotia .   Luminosity is the basis of my feeling in painting these canvases.  Luminosity, light and color are such a big part of my personal experience of the East Coast.  I find myself surrounded by luminosity and persuaded to respond through painting.  The beauty I experience within simple moments of observation pushes and pulls me in the direction of making paintings. In my work, I try to weave together a fictional depiction of many moments, all linked by light and color.  All of the paintings in the show are connected through my common concern for the observation of light. This light is a low-angled, northern light with long and deep shadows.  Light illuminates all aspects of our environment, from rugged and rocky coasts to simple roadside weeds.  I’m an explorer of light and its effects.  My motifs are the coastal waters and lakes of Nova Scotia, however I’ve included two landscape paintings based on the fields and vistas of Prince Edward Island.

Click here to view under one-minute YouTube videos of my paintings “Bay in Late Morning” “Sheds Along the Sea” and “Along the Bay”.

There are two mains streams running throughout all of my painting, a naturalistic stream and a subjective stream.  My subjective paintings are based more on my imagination and personal vision.  My naturalistic paintings look a lot like how things appear. In either style, I look to inhabit all the parts of my painting surfaces with a luminosity arising from light and color.  The painting Sheds Along the Sea is a subjective seascape, not so literal a depiction, but more an imagined place evolved through process.   I sometimes draw parts of paintings like flowers, roadside weeds, rocks, boats and sheds.  When I have a few parts drawn in a way I like, I began to reassemble them into a picture, moving their positions and changing their scale on paper like a director sets prop positions for a film scene.  This painting evolved with a certain emphasis, exaggeration and feeling based on these movable parts coming to rest as the finished piece.

Early Evening Light

The Wind Around Here and Early Evening Light are examples of my more naturalistic or realistic approach.  I’ve been working with the notion of bringing a more subjective view to my naturalistic work.  In other words, I’m trying to distill what I see into more simplified and personal forms that have meaning for me within the context of the painting.  These two examples are not specific places.  They only exist on the canvas and they came about through drawing all the elements and re-assembling them into a pictorial composition.  I’m not trying to improve on nature, but rather trying to pick and choose what I enjoy and what I find works as image.  Please enjoy the work and thank you for reading this.

Lilies in Morning Light

Bay in Late Morning

Sheds Along the Sea

Bay in Light

Three Boats Beneath a Tree

The Coast at Peggy's Cove

Hill Shadows

Summer Harvest