ORIGINS
WHEN PEOPLE ASK, "where is your art coming from?" I say that is the very mystery my art is trying to solve. My worry has always been that it's coming from a place outside of myself, with a precise story to tell. But, obviously, it can't help also coming from where my roots are—where I grew up. How could I not have been influenced by the landscapes my mind so freely wandered and the art I was exposed to in my formative years? You cannot be a Canadian artist without walking in the footsteps of Tom Thompson and The Group of Seven, as well as later artists like Patterson Ewen. Even contemporary artists, such as Peter Doig and Kim Dorland, cannot escape the impact of the Canadian landscape. So these pictures are a bit of an homage to my artistic birthplace and another way for me to address the phenomenological issue of nature VS. nurture VS. the possibility of something bigger in trying to understand the source of my creativity.
