Artist Statement:

These images reflect my two practices: painting and photography. The Fire works stem from my scientific interest in the ecology of forest fires and my experience of those fires as a subject for Sublime painterly abstraction.

All things seem to lead to the Sublime for me and so my photgraphy goes there too. Originating as a record of gull behaviour at Goldstream over several fall seasons, the work turned into a portfolio angels at work.

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Light in the Lake 2	Goldfire #7	Dark Night	DSC 0567

DSC 2665

Biography:

I was born in Victoria BC in 1950 and attended UVic 1968 to 1978, graduating with a BSc in Biology.

From 1975 to 1981, I participated in an art therapy program in Victoria. In that shared studio, I learned that my subconscious speaks in a constantly evolving visual language. Also in 1975, I met Dr. Jim Tucker, Victoria MD and acupuncturist and through him was exposed to Buddhist ideas concerning the relationship of body, mind and spirit.

From 1972 to 2007 I was based in the Rocky Mountain National Parks where I worked as a park naturalist. For 6 years within that period I worked in Yellowknife and Edmonton as a conservation education officer.

In 1987, I enrolled in the Alberta College of Art in Calgary, graduating in 1991 with distinction in painting. Art school added knowledge of studio practice and art history. I could relate to Kandinsky’s “the spirit in art” and to Abstract Expressionism’s spontaneous use of paint. Surrealism’s relationship with the subconscious was a process akin to that learned through art therapy. Helen Frankenthaler’s tender stained canvases and Pollock's woven skeins of paint both spoke to me.

In 1992, I gave birth to my son and continued the practice of my art and my vocation as a naturalist around the demands of motherhood.

In 2007, I relocated to Victoria to see my son through high school and to care for my mother. I left the Rockies and took up full time residence in Victoria in 2012. I continue to paint out of my small studio in Rock Bay Square and to maintain my relationships with the natural world.