Cindy Delpart

Born and raised in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Delpart studied graphic design at George Brown College in Toronto, Ontario from 1974-1976. For the past 30 years she has resided in Calgary, Alberta, where she has infused her artistic temperament into all aspects of her life. It is here the paint almost explodes onto the canvases that fill her studio as she interprets and reinterprets the prairie landscape.

Although Delpart lives and paints in Calgary most of the year, she sometimes works from her rustic studio nestled in a community of artisans and farmers overlooking the Missouri Coteau in south western Saskatchewan. It is here, in the vast landscape that traces her childhood roots Delpart's psyche was molded and from where she derives the artistic strength that permeates the core of her being.

"Abstract expressionist Robert Motherwell believed artists present their own feelings and emotions directly on the canvas. For me, abstract expressionism is all about conveying to canvas the power and passion of my inner self energized by my response to the landscape. Painting in its best moments takes me from the physical world to a place of personal imagination and introspection. The prairies appear to fuel that personal takeoff for me.

To the age of 10 my life revolved around the prairie landscape. The marks I make today are abstract expressions of the wind whipping through the endless grass to the glacier-carved undulations of the Missouri Coteau. When I paint plein air or open air, I feel most inspired and most connected to the prairie landscape."

Tender Affection - 2007
acrylic on canvas, 36 in x 48 in