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Nocturne series Click on the images below to view larger image.
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Other recent work |
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Paintings and mixed media works from other series are also available.
For inquiries please contact the artist |
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Statement
These paintings continue my exploration of the specific physical environment of Gros Morne National Park. At the same time, Nocturne is, more generally, about the poetry of the night and the mystery of the cosmos. These works are also about the shift in visual perception and focus that we experience in the darkness.
The imagery is of the nocturnal landscape. These paintings reflect the shift in our perception which night occasions: in the darkness, vegetation and geological texture are obscured, and the land is reduced to a silhouette, like a flat cut-out against the star-lit sky. Delineation of details is minimal: sketchy, like a mere thought. Still, the dark profiles of these iconic landscapes are immediately recognizable by their contours: Tablelands, Gros Morne Mountain, Western Brook gorge, Trout River Pond.
In the dark, our focus shifts from the almost-invisible terrestrial details to celestial phenomena: the constellations of the Northern Hemisphere; our galaxy and others; nebulae, meteors, the aurora borealis. On a clear night one can feel the infinitude of the cosmos.
The extension of the stars across the picture plane plays both a formal and a conceptual role. Formally, the stars unify the compositions, top to bottom, edge to edge. Conceptually, the land, sea, and sky all share the same elements and energy, and this idea of cosmic unity is underscored by having the stars extend from the background through the foreground, from sky into land. As above, so below.