Biography

I am a Mixed Media artist, born and raised on the prairies of Saskatchewan. Growing up on the vast spread of land and endless sky that is the prairies, I feel it is unavoidable to develop a very strong connection with nature. Spending endless hours examining flower blossoms and freshly opened tree buds, savoring vibrant sunsets and ever-changing cloud formations...I wanted so desperately to be able to 'freeze frame', not only these short-lived miracles of nature, but the feelings they generated within me. I spent a lot of time as a child, drawing and coloring.

Growing up in the 60's, I was very drawn to Pop Art and its strong shapes and colors. My palettes still tend to be vibrant and bold...even if the subjects I am recreating, are not. I enjoy working with textured acrylic as well as mixed media, image transfer and prefer handpainting the paper I use in collage.

Painting landscapes and architecture began while living overseas for 15 years as a 'trailing expat spouse'. I found the architecture in the Middle East fascinating, and started creating wall mountable tile mosaics of landscapes and Mosques, bringing an element of 'East meets West' to my pieces. While building mosaics is a very unique and enjoyable form of art, it is extremely heavy to stock and relocate. Therefore, switching to acrylics made sense, as it was much easier (lighter) to work with, and I enjoy the textures I can still lend to my pieces using mixed media, collage and acrylics combined. 

Upon repatriatring to Calgary in 2014, my works have become less detailed and more textureized and abstracted, as I found that by zooming in on images and pulling shapes, colors and textures from my photographs, I could integrade those elements into my artwork to help create abstracts which contain an atmospheric presence that feels as raw and visceral as the experience itself.