20 Years of Art

In the past, my artwork has often been about being somewhere else than "here" and "now". (See kl-d.ca)

For many years, the focus of my artwork was old family photographs. I loved to dwell on those old memories that were not mine and dream about the people in my family whom I never got to meet, or gaze at my own mother's image as a child.

After that, I began painting scenes from my travels. Feeling the heat of the jungle from my tiny city studio on a cold and snowy winter day... hearing the sounds of the crashing waves and the rustling palm trees in my mind.... being "there" and not "here".

  

Now, I don't want to be anywhere else but here, in my beautiful countryside. I figured I would be spending this winter painting surrounding landscape, becoming a local, comfort-country artist. But I'm just not that into it for some reason. Maybe I haven't found my new voice yet. I did try to paint the neighbor's field:

And another neighbor's cows:

But these paintings just don't seem right. Pretty. Lame. I need a bit of an edge even though I'm a very traditional painter. Or maybe because of that. Something's missing. I've been thinking about how this great transition, this drastic change in environments is affecting me, and I guess I need time to stew a bit like a piece of tough meat. Maybe I'll just take my new inspiration with food and carry it over to my art and start painting "still" lifes like I used to back in my University days:

Who knows what will happen with my art in the future, but for now it seems I have to embrace this hiatus, and patiently wait for the meat to tenderize and fall off the bone.