One challenge is to work within the historical context of landscape painting in Canada while avoiding the clichés inherent in traditional 'scenic' landscape painting. As a contemporary painter, I am challenged to invent and develop my own language - and trust that it will be clear enough to communicate something of my vision.

I am fascinated by the interplay between the rational aspect of painting and the apparent disorder of the creative process. I generally don't know or understand what is happening while I paint. This is both a relief and a frustration. It's a relief to realize that I can't know everything before I start a painting, I just have to begin. On the other hand, it can be frustrating to realize that I don't know what to do. I don't know where the painting is going, but I go with it.

Obviously, at some level I am very clear about what is necessary to make a painting. Intuition has a strong place in my work. I am constantly making choices -- about the use of colour or brushstroke, for instance -- and these decisions are sometimes cerebral, but often intuitive and inexplicable. My paintings come alive when reason and intuition work together.

I have been told that my paintings have "a sense of openness and trust in the interpretation the viewer will place on the image". I don't want to force my way of seeing on the viewer. Besides, painting as I do in uncertainty, it is impossible for me to clarify every mark. My paintings are more interesting to me, and I hope to others, if there is a sense of my inability to know.

Approaches To Painting

I have two approaches to painting: on location, and from video or webcam images.

When I paint landscapes en plein air I often spend hours in my car, looking for something that appeals to me, that I want to paint. Recently I’ve also started using my computer to do the ‘driving’, and I wander the world with Google and Google Earth, looking at webcam and satellite images. When I find a view that appeals to me, I paint it.

The process of ‘finding something to paint’ is surprisingly similar, whether using my computer or using my car. Each is compelling. Whether I’m in my studio looking at the world via a webcam located thousands of miles from my home, or standing beside a county road in southern Ontario, I am absorbed by what I see. My challenge is to use my visual language to communicate that in paint.

Back road swamps vs. Urban night scenes

When I’m at work in the daytime, around the world there are cities at night, captured by thousands of webcams, their images broadcast across the Internet available for me to paint. Urban night scenes are full of glowing, reflected light. Like swamps, one of my favourite plein air subjects, city streets at night are full of dark mystery, with sparkling high notes, and saturated colour. Both are irresistible.