Emily Carr

Students, peers and collectors often ask me who my influences are, so here’s the answer. This is ongoing as they invariably evolve as I grow as an artist. I can tell you though that the first influence that significantly  changed my life in regards to pursuing my art was the work and life of Mary Cassatt. That was over twenty years ago. Since, the Impressionists and post-- Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gaugan, and Degas-- then Munch, Klimt, Turner, Bonnard, Chagall—so many. After moving back to Canada I have garnered immense  respect for Emily Carr as well as the Group of Seven. Painting the landscape on site and against all of the elements is challenging for any artist, but when I think of how they ‘weathered’ the Canadian wilderness back then. WOW.

Currently there are two landscape artists whose work I admire for their passion, honesty and integrity. One is Scottish artist  Ken Bushe. He lives and breathes sky, air, water and land. I look at his work and feel him in it and it in him. The other is Canadian artist Bruno Cote. His response to Canadian landscape is exuberant colour, pattern, shape and pure joy and exaltation of all that is around him. 

'Nature is not only all that is visible to the eye.. it also includes the inner pictures of the soul.' Edvard Munch