Art in my life

I began falling in love with art long before I had the language to explain it. As a child, I would wander through our home, which felt more like a quiet gallery than a house. My maternal grandfather collected carvings and paintings created by First Nations artists from across Manitoba — each piece carrying story, memory, and spirit. Even then, something in me recognized that art was more than decoration. Colour and texture spoke in a language deeper than words.

Growing up in Canada, I eventually encountered the work of the Group of Seven and Tom Thomson. Their paintings did not merely depict the land — they revealed it. Windswept pines bending like prayer, skies alive with movement, rock and water humming with presence. They showed me that landscape could be a living force, and that paint could become a vessel for its spirit.

Years later, living in Canmore, Alberta, beneath vast skies and towering peaks, I felt that same current moving through stone and light. The Bow River carried a rhythm that seemed almost ceremonial. The mountains felt ancient, watchful.

Now, in the Lake of the Woods region, the energy is the same — softer, yet no less powerful. Granite, boreal forest, endless water and sky — they shimmer with a quiet vitality. The land here is some of the oldest known in the world and carries knowledge and stories.

Oil painting allows me to slow down, to listen, and to translate that unseen current onto canvas. For me, painting is not representation. It is communion — a gentle, ongoing conversation with the living spirit of the land.