From There to Here

This exhibition is the culmination of a series of works that describe my visits over the years to St. John’s, Newfoundland. At nearly 7,000 kilometres from Vancouver, each trip clearly illustrates to me the vastness of Canada and emphasizes the physical separation between my home and the farthest reaches of the continent. As with any city I visit, upon leaving the moments and memories linger, then percolate and reconfigure into something altogether new. Because memory is elusive and prey to the vagaries of both time and experience, these images become vague impressions of the days I walked the streets of St. John’s. Each painting is based upon a specific moment in time but is entirely suffused with the layers of memory that arise between my time in Newfoundland and the moment I apply the final coat of varnish to the painting in Vancouver.

On the ground in Newfoundland I am always struck by the sense of isolation, of being removed from the tumult of the world. It’s an island-life phenomenon I’ve experienced in locations as diverse as BC’s Salt Spring Island, Italy’s Isola d’Elba, or Maui. Everything slows down and the unfolding of a day is accepted just as it is, or as it is meant to be. Island time is so vastly different from mainland time. And since Newfoundland is an island, albeit a massive one, being there lends me the opportunity to embrace that gift of living adjacent to the world rather than subsumed by it.

This series of works portrays St. John’s in its various stages of time and place as it moves from day into night and back again into day. Unlike most of the cities I paint, there is a distinct lack of hustle and bustle portrayed in this work. In its stead, under my gaze, it is a city that appears to be contemplating those age old human questions: why do I exist and how did I get here? Perhaps that’s just my own experience. Perhaps Newfoundland, like the many other islands I have been able to visit, simply offers up the gift of time and opportunity to ponder such things. Like a brush with ill health or the loss of a friend, it brings the important things into clear focus. It’s a reminder of how to live a life with deliberation. And in some ways it feels like I have lived there before and I am returning to something I’ve already known. In another lifetime, perhaps I did.