Laurel J. V. Cormack

Painting the landscape, for me, is more a perception of what the landscape is, what it feels like to me. Many of my paintings begin out of a mood, out of a relationship with nature, or things, out of a total impression. Thus, my paintings are often about searching for a sense of place, celebrating my regionalism - because we are who we are in large part because of where we are and where we've been.

My concerns often centre around the sense of a world lost. While there is a good deal of romance in the representation of landscape, there is a deeper meaning in trying to put form to feelings, and what the outdoors does to one's mind as it is experienced. The challenge for me, as the artist, comes with the disparity between the landscape as it might be seen and the landscape as it is rendered in paint.

Some of my paintings imply this sense of loss - a loss which addresses that of the shrinking wilderness, the insistent march of society upon the boreal forest regions. Perhaps in this way my work will evoke a deeper, more sympathetic meaning. The viewers take from the painting what they will - the myth and mystery, the personal energy, the symbolism, the celebration of emotion or regionalism that has been instilled into the work.

While the paintings are inspired by a particular place in my world - our world - this sense of place is manipulated to arouse emotion on another level than that of pure landscape, more than "just another pretty picture". One way I try to convey my ideas to the viewer is through the use of strong colour, colour that draws to the attention of the viewer the notion that perhaps there is something else going on.

One art review out of Edmonton likened my paintings to "Emily Carr on acid, the Group of Seven on ecstasy". In reality, my influence is that of the 19th century Fauvist (wild beast) Movement, whose critics protested these artists' savage use of arbitrary colour, flaunting their childlike pleasure in the use of raw, violent colour contrasts.

While it is true there is a historical tradition of romance in the representation of landscape, the challenge for me as the artist comes with the disparity between the landscape as it might be seen and the landscape as it is rendered in paint.

"That is beautiful which is produced by internal necessity, which springs from the soul." - Wassily Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, an Expressionist Credo, George Wittenborn Inc., Publishers, NY, p.75

Lake O'Hara Shoreline - 2001
oil on canvas, 48 in x 48 in