Celestial Bodies Print

An early interest in drawing evolved into a quest for expression in a variety of media including painting in oil, watercolours and pastel, as well as forays into the production of sculpture using various materials. This drive has also lead her to work as a theatre and film technician, a scenic painter, props and sets builder. She is also an accomplished portrait painter. Completing numerous portrait commissions and has appeared on the television show, “Star Portraits”, as an award winning portrait artist. Morag’s work is inspired by life experiences growing up in a family that held the beauty of nature in the highest esteem. She started life in the wilds of Kenya and eventually moved to northern Ontario Canada with her family, spending most of her formative years outdoors camping in untamed nature. She is interested in exploring how the human population growth exploits nature and how we take for granted the effects our intrusion has on the environment. We often destroy what it is we seek to enjoy, all in the process of trying to get closer to it. Clear cutting forests to build homes in the country, golf club lawn chemicals leaching into streams, diver’s sunscreens destroying coral reefs, introducing non native plants to gardens, unknowingly introducing invasive bug species to the continent and these are just a few examples. Her work is a study in the relationship between what we want to see in nature and what we have done to the environment to improve our experience with it. She is compelled to develop work that brings to light common interests like the beauty found in the landscape or waterscape the disconnects found those manipulated environments.