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Seeing More was originally intended as a celebration of a lengthy process of going back into older paintings with new eyes, However our pandemic intervened, and so did Black Lives Matter ... and a deeper awareness of Indigenous lives as well. I’m grateful to be able to bring these reimagined paintings forward again - with a renewed commitment to Seeing More deeply, Caring More widely.

This show is dedicated to my own dearly loved and held, multi-racial family.

In just over a week, Marilyn Chapman and I will be hanging our abstract paintings at the ArtSea gallery in Sidney. In amongst the painting and ordering of cheese plates have been many conversations fleshing out our individual approaches to our theme, and trying to visualise how we’ll bring this together in a coherent manner. Now we’re excited, and counting down the sleeps.

Marilyn has been excellent at mapping out size and pattern arrangements that will provide a unifying platform for our differing statements. Portals are often imagined as circular, and that’s what you’ll see as you walk into the gallery: a four piece collaboration that imagines the visionary space through which you are stepping as you enter our world. 

We are excited to welcome you into this space of perhaps liminal seeing, or flaring feelings - or what you yourself bring into the experience.

Our reception is Sunday, September 15, from 1 to 3. Please come for refreshments and probing conversation.

Late winter and early spring has brought an opportunity to revisit ‘completed’ works and ask what more might appear there. Gradually, I am seeing how my many years as a traditional calligrapher give me an additional broad language for use within my abstract paintings. I can’t tell you how excited this makes me.

Drawn lines, my favourite Uncial hand, and asemic writing (having no meaning) are all showing up boldly on sizeable canvases and contributing new layers and complexity to my compositions. I’m thrilled! The process is the usual one of interior darkness and partial blindness as I translate questions into strokes and look endlessly at the resulting conversation. Are we heading to resolution yet?

As ever, I am inspired by bold artists whose work I encounter, often online. Standouts at present include Vanessa Lam and Lance Austin Olsen.

And I am planning an art-explore in New York shortly, before immersing myself in an annual Okanagan painting retreat, all guaranteeing a continuing, raucous paint conversation.