Connections 2 (2005)

About the Artist:
I attended school of Art at the University of Manitoba. While there I had two nervous breakdowns and was diagnosed schizo-effective, but managed to graduate with a Bachelor of Fine Arts. I married in 1980, had a daughter, however, although I worked diligently all through the 80s, because of my condition, I was unable to promote my art and generate income. The marriage ended in 1989.

With help from friends, better medication and therapy, I was better able to promote my work and had numerous shows in the 90s. In 2003, I took part in Mindscapes One in Ottawa where I was chosen best artist from out of 70 artists that took part.

I have obtained a Manitoba Arts Council Grant and am finally able to generate income. This has been a source of joy to me and has enabled me to understand and integrate my mental condition into a more holistic way of looking at things. I have begun to understand that some of my illness can be an asset. Some of the experiences have been profound and divine, even though others have been pure hell.

Artist's Statement:
I portray the objects and environment around me. In portraying a landscape or object, I engage in the contemplative, meditative nature of art. It takes time to see and sketch an object and render it in a painting. Often, after seeing and rendering such reality in a work of art, I discover profound insights, about what I've created.

The passage of time fascinates me. One can have an experience so profound that one relives the moment over and over again, while other experiences in time are quickly forgotten. Just as an individual has a time machine, which are his mind and his heart, art and everything an individual creates can last longer than the lifetime of the individual.

There is emotional expression in my art. Like the early romantics I embrace my ideas with emotional fervour, even though romanticism has in our present age been denied legitimacy. For me it is a moment of love, joy, sorrow, peace, calm or excitement that inevitably colours ones "rational" or "objective" perception of reality.

Pursuing thought, perception, and comprehension is a truly engaging journey. One recognizes that the wilderness landscape is much the same as the verdant growth seen by the early voyageurs; forever changing, forever the same.

Art is my time machine, a way to speak to future generations, not just the generation of my time.

Exhibitions (Group):