Animals

Why do I paint animals so often?

I grew up in a deep wood in Eastern Canada, and visitors were rare. Family life was intense, but we had trees, water and wildlife everywhere.

We saved huge wolf spiders from the ceilings with peanut butter jars. We watched a moose cut through our wood at a clip, leaving a massive hole where his antlers ripped the weak cedar branches. We gawped at a fiery fox padding across the melting ice plates on the river, worried she might fall through.

Stored memories like these worm their way into my artworks. Compositionally though, I often love their shape and the negative space they provide in a composition. I love balancing the real and the unreal, anthropomorphizing to the point of fantasy. And I love messing with size so you will have a huge animal and a small person or vice versa.

But I also love the idea of quiet communing. And non-humans don’t judge, gossip, lie or manipulate. Maybe I paint these things when I feel unsettled. Maybe for me, it is like a hug in a painting.