I suspect I’ve been a visual artist since I had the motor skills to pick up a crayon, although no evidence of this remains today. Throughout grade school art classes were always my favourite, and in 1989 I took it to the next level, continuing my studies at the Alberta College of Art, in Calgary, Canada. I majored in drawing, a very open, largely conceptual program that allowed a wide range of experimentation in all manner of materials, and graduated with honours, class of ’93. Fast forward 30 odd years; in 2022 I began moving away from figurative drawings that incorporated paint and towards straight-up painting on paper. This seemingly subtle shift resulted in a big change in subject matter. I found myself referencing nature as a framework to explore colour, shape, and texture. I attribute this change to both picking up the brush as implement of choice, and a video series I began shooting in 2021 – The Meadow. Fascinated by the gorgeous abstract effects I was capturing on video in Stanley Park, in Vancouver, I wanted to see if I could approximate something similar in paint. This latest collection of work, also called The Meadow, documents my first work in the great Canadian tradition of abstract landscapes.