Liquid Abstracts

Over the past years, I have collected videos of moving water.  In Liquid Abstract, they are used to create large scale paintings that speak of movement, and the power of water in our lives and in our environment. 

This video shows the process used to create the paintings in this series.

 

I experience nature through hiking, swimming, and kayaking. While doing so, I collect photos and videos that I later use as the inspiration for abstracted interpretation of the original. The end result is an expression of my emotional and intellectual relationship with our  environment. 

Water is a primordial visual influence for me as an artist. Capturing videos of moving water allows me to immerse myself in the environment. In fact, I physically submerge myself with a camera to search for movement above and below the surface. I have spent hours in Sylvan Lake, in the Elbow and Bow rivers, in mountain lakes such as Minnewanka, Goat Pond, Kananaskis lakes in Alberta and in Lake Magog and the Saint Laurence seaway in Quebec. This is fundamental to my artistic practice and to what it means to me to be an artist. My practice is an extension of my relationship to the land.

To create this body of work, I attach large canvases to the walls of my studio. Onto these I project one or two water videos. The videos have been slowed down to a point that makes it possible to observe the relationship between the moving visual elements, and then paint what strikes me as interesting and relevant. This process allows me to accomplish three things: 

  1. Re-immerse myself in the original environments where I captured the videos.
  2. Abstract the visual information into large paintings that are about fluid movement.
  3. Develop an intuitive visual understanding of water movements through the act of painting. 

The resulting artworks are consistent with water movements and read as such but are an abstraction of those movements through colour alterations and through personal interpretation on those movements and the relationships between them. 

Leave a Reply