Road Trip Playlist

On display in Toronto October 15th – November 7th, 2021

My paintings have had recurrent subject matter of driving for some time now, but these recent works have also become autobiographical. Influenced by years of my wife, dog and I regularly travelling the highway back and forth between Halifax NS and Saint John NB. The paintings are a departure from the realism of photographically representing landscape, and are rather more materially based explorations of paint with repeated motifs of my family riding in our car. Drawing from memory and by also channeling some favorite music for inspiration, the paintings have become like psychological self portraits, where colour becomes transcendent; the paint carving light and space into abstraction. While this work has a more personal sentiment than what I’ve made in the past, the appropriated song lyrics which I’ve titled the works create a pop-culture reference that frames the paintings into a conceptual narrative; giving a level of atmosphere to the work and inclusivity to the viewer. I like to think about the paintings like tracks of music from a personal playlist you would listen to while coasting down the highway on a road trip.

I am grateful to acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for the works in this exhibition.