My work explores the relationship between natural world and us, the viewers, or occupiers of this world, using colour, texture and shape. With influences from the Group of Seven, First Nations artists and my own background as a printmaker, I developed a style that reflects not only what the viewer expects to see in these landscapes, but also the hidden influences of people on these views through the unexpected use of man-made pigments. When I was growing up in Northern Ontario, I took my surroundings for granted as most children do. It was only when I started to return there as an adult that I saw not only the beauty of the land, but also the relationships that different groups of people had to the land ranging from the privileged who claimed the waters for their sport, to the natives who tended the land, to the long reaching effects that we all have on the climate and the land. As I explore various Ontario’s landscapes, I am attempting to show them not as representations of exact locations but as interpretations of the internal spirit of each place whether it is a lake, a forest, a waterfall or even a solitary tree. Each landscape is in essence, a portrait of a living earth.