The works in this show all deal with various aspects of the landscape, some close at hand
from the Manitoba region and others from my recent residency in Germany. The painting Nearing Munich was developed
from a series of photographs I took of the landscape near the Munich airport with the large nuclear power-plant cooling
tower looming over idyllic farmland. The two large black and white photographs taken along the Ilz River near the Danube
were an exploration of foliage, light and shade as well as the interesting tree formations.
The three other paintings in this show were all developed from the Winnipeg landscape: two at night and one from a smoky,
hazy afternoon.
Living as I do now in the rural area around Stonewall, I have found the landscape around my studio to be endlessly
interesting, with the constantly changing light and atmosphere as well as the often dramatic changes with the seasons.
Digital photography has been a perfect complement to this landscape in flux. I try to capture whatever I find interesting
at the moment and then sort through the images for themes that I may want to develop at a later time.
The fluidity of moving from camera through software to the image on the computer and finally to the image on paper has
allowed a certain spontaneity which has been hard to develop through other means. At the same time the process of
collecting images has given me a chance to contemplate the possibility of developing some into paintings – a slower
more involved process but one with its own particular rewards.
The single photograph from Costa Rica is only a small part of a series of images with which I am working after my recent
trip there last winter. While the landscape of the rainforest and the volcanoes was the main purpose of the trip, the time
I spent on the Pacific coast yielded some unexpected images of water and sand which I hope to develop into a future
exhibition.