For 12 years my work was created in my Toronto studio, then in 1998 I had to get closer to nature. Painting trips with the Toronto based group 'Drawnonward' to the Queen Charlottes, Newfoundland, Yukon and Quebec made me aware that I needed to live and work closer to nature. On New Years Eve of the new millenium I moved to Socan Lake in the interior of B.C. Soon after, my life and work changed entirely.
On February 15th 2001 as I pushed my canoe off from shore, I had a vision of an eagle challenging me to prepare for death. For the next hour, with the eagle flying above me, I thought about the nature of death until I was at peace with it. Suddenly my canoe swamped more than a kilometre from shore and I was forced to swim for 35 minutes in the glacial water, witnessing my consciousness slowly being numbed by hypothermia. An unbelievable sense of peace accompanied the swim, finally bringing me to a place where I accepted my time to die. I entered a tunnel of light, and came to a beautiful light-filled place where I felt unified with all things. I could see past and future. Existence was perfect. (words don't do this experience justice)
I slipped back up the tunnel and found myself floating in the freezing cold lake. Somehow I made it to shore. A couple, from their cabin high above the lake, had been watching the eagle circling and screeching and when they came outside to investigate they heard my screams. Upon hitting shore I was no more than an animal driven by survival instinct. Over the next two hours I screamed myself back from dangerous hypothermia into being a solid person in my body again. Everyone thought I should have died.
This experience has completely changed my life and work. A great sense of purpose became clear, to pursue the clarity and perfection I experienced in the lake. I am driven to explore this new idiom - it seems so imprtant to me - finding my true self under all these layers of myself.
I still use thick gel, handmade tools, sprayed paint, brushes and scrapers as I did before 'the swim' but the work now seems to come directly from my soul - springing out unplanned, growing and changing as the process continues. Interweaving layers seem to represent physical and spiritual planes. Almost a birth every time, and, somewhere in the process, almost a death.
I began painting fulltime in 1990 at the age of 20, having grown up with artists in the family and full support to focus on being a painter.
I soon met artist joseph drapell and began a four year apprenticeship focused on art history , viewing private and museum collections, and self critique.
Painting and showing in Toronto throughout the nineties provided the basis of experimentation in abstraction with research into shaped painting in the U.S. and adventure painting all over Canada.
I was a founding member of the painting group DRAWNONWARD which traveled across the country in buses trains planes and ships. We shot the film “SEVEN PAINTERS SEVEN PLACES”during a trip to Newfoundland in our customized green schoolbus.
The film became quite popular and aired frequently on bravo and cbc from 1997 till the present.
My work with the group pushed me to search for the perfect place to live in Canada where I could access intensely wild and beautiful areas from my home, bringing me to slocan lakein the year 2000.
Since then I have developed the shaped canvas stretcher, based on a relationship with painters from the NEW NEW PAINTERS group, some of whom have pushed the idiom to a place where it need someone younger with a fresh vision to move ahead.
The shaped paintings were catalyzed by outdoor painting here in the kootenays, but the roots are from New York.
I continue to show privately and with assorted groups in Canada and the U.S.
selected group shows
DRAWNONWARD GROUP SHOW, ENGINE GALLERY, FEBRUARY 2010
PARCA, gallery 511, NY NY, June 2007
‘Triptych’, Artspace Gallery, Calgary, November 2004
Gallery Artists, Robert Kidd Gallery, Birmingham MI, Autumn 2004
‘Water’, Gallery One, Toronto, July 2003
Remembering Clem, Gallery One, Toronto, October 2002
Drawnonward, Wagner Rosenbaum Gallery, Toronto, January 2001
Currents, Artsforum, New York City, December2000
Group Show, Galerie d’Avignon, Montreal, October 2000
Le Paysage Qui Nous Parles, Harbourfront Centre, Toronto, November1999
Le Paysage Qui Nous Parles, Gare Winsor, Montreal, November1999
Where We Are, Arcadia Gallery, Toronto, June 1999
solo shows
new new painting museum, Toronto, ON, October 2008
new new museum, Toronto, ON, November 2007
o’my gallery, Toronto, ON, December 2005
New Perspectives Gallery, Passmore,B.C., June 2005
Julia Masson gallery, New York City, December2004
Ironworks Gallery, Vancouver, B.C., September2004
Hidden Garden Gallery, New Denver B.C., September2004
Gallery 409, Toronto, March 2004
Level Gallery, Collingwood, Ontario, October 2003
Redfish, Nelson, B.C., March 2003
Gallery 409, toronto, November 2001
Sugar and Sugar Gallery, Vancouver, B.C., October 2001
Redfish, Nelson B.C., July 2001
Gallery 409, Toronto, October 2000
All Seasons, Nelson B.C., August 2000
Silverton Gallery, Silverton B.C, July 2000
Gallery 409, Toronto, April 1999
Instituto Guatemala Americano, Guatemala City, August 1998
Alley Gallery, Toronto, August 1997
Cosmos Gallery, Toronto, Nov. 1994
Cosmos Gallery, Toronto, March 1993
Cosmos Gallery, Toronto, February 1992
Collections
Bank of Nova Scotia, toronto
Carter and Cumming Assoc.toronto
Mattamy corp.toronto
M/s explorer (sunken vessel)
Touchstones museum, nelson
Numerous Private Collections
education
Apprenticeship with painter Joseph Drapell, 1993-96
Universite Canadienne en France, 1990
Carleton University art history/architecture, 1989
Media
CBC tv spot ‘Drawnonward in the arctic”, 2005/6
CBC Television “Seven Painters Seven Places”, 1999-2001
Bravo Network “Seven Painters Seven Places”, 1999-2001
National Post, November 1999
Outpost Magazine, September 1999
Siglo News, Guatemala City, August 1998
Financial Post Magazine, May 1998
Toronto Life Fashion Magazine, April 1997
