Landscape recalls you into a mindful mode of stillness, solitude, and silence where you can truly receive time."
-John O'Donohue
In this series of landscape paintings there exists a continuation as well as an evolution of my interests and working practice. I have been a painter en plein air for many years, which allows me to tap into the energy that does not exist in the studio. The sights, the sounds, the smells, the wind and the weather and changing light all combine to evoke excitement, emotion and passion. This is the reason that I do not alter the outdoor painted sketches. They remain true to the colours and forms in the landscape that first attract my attention. I journal as well as photograph and use these in combination with the outdoor sketches to create the larger studio works. I have always had a deep connection to the land where I live and to one distinct feature of this area, the Niagara Escarpment. I have hiked extensively on the Bruce Trail and conservation lands from Niagara to Halton and images gathered there create the thread that runs through this body of work.
My interest in art was piqued in childhood. I was given a small book on Miro by my fifth grade teacher with "best wishes for an artistic career" written inside. At an early age, I was intimately familiar with the Hamilton Art Gallery's permanent collection, spending countless hours there before and after Saturday art classes. Like so many Canadians, the Group of Seven, Emily Carr and Tom Thomson were the icons of my youth and remain to this day the foundation, history and continuum to which my landscape art is forever linked. My influences are varied and span many time frames including artists from the Romantic era to present day.
Although my images are representational, they evolve in both a gestural and abstract way through my use of line, form and colour. During my process I use glazing, scumbling and impasto methods to build the painting and give variety and texture to the surface of the canvas. Landscape is for me a projection of the artist's inner world as much as it is a response to the outer. In some landscapes an evocative mood dominates and in others I emphasize a state of being or mindscape. In our world today, I believe we have become removed from nature both physically and spiritually. By creating images that speak of beauty I hope others will reconnect with the instinctive part of our human psyche that needs and longs to unite with the natural world.
-Carolyn Dover
My interest in art was piqued in childhood. I was given a small book on Miro by my fifth grade teacher with "best wishes for an artistic career" written inside. At an early age, I was intimately familiar with the Hamilton Art Gallery's permanent collection, spending countless hours there before and after Saturday art classes. Like so many Canadians, the Group of Seven, Emily Carr and Tom Thomson were the icons of my youth and remain to this day the foundation, history and continuum to which my landscape art is forever linked. My influences are varied and span many time frames including artists from the Romantic era to present day.
Although my images are representational, they evolve in both a gestural and abstract way through my use of line, form and colour. During my process I use glazing, scumbling and impasto methods to build the painting and give variety and texture to the surface of the canvas. Landscape is for me a projection of the artist's inner world as much as it is a response to the outer. In some landscapes an evocative mood dominates and in others I emphasize a state of being or mindscape. In our world today, I believe we have become removed from nature both physically and spiritually. By creating images that speak of beauty I hope others will reconnect with the instinctive part of our human psyche that needs and longs to unite with the natural world.
-Carolyn Dover