Sanremo's Harbour Print

I am a Canadian contemporary visual artist, using mostly acrylics as a medium. I lived most of my life on the banks of the Ottawa River, where I grew up. My art is therefore inspired by my Ottawa Valley childhood, with the river as my favourite playground. I was born in Pembroke, Ontario, but now reside in Ottawa where I have a studio. I enjoy painting inspirational or captivating scenes. Water, as to be expected, has a special attraction for me and I love to show its beauty and power. Water scenes have become a favourite subject and are often illustrations of my time spent at the family cottage at Golden Lake, but they also show some sceneries I marvelled at while travelling by boat or car in Atlantic Canada. I make art because it fulfills a creative need in myself. I enjoy particularly its meditative side. I am passionate about my art and enjoy being fully immersed into the subject while painting. For me, a painting should tell a story and provide interest to the viewer. I am attentive to colours and composition in expressing various moods or in presenting action scenes. I am particularly moved when a person reacts or feels an emotion by looking at my art. I am mostly self taught but enhanced my techniques with a number of courses and art classes with various teachers and institutions. I continue to explore the medium with the approach of using vivid colours, imagery and emotion to tell a story. My art is heavily influenced by the realist painters as well as several of the neo-impressionist and classical painters. I attempt to make sense of my world in my paintings. As an artist, I believe that the process of creating is both conscious and impulsive. While a painting is in progress, I imagine various images unto the uncompleted work and often the final artwork may be quite different than the original concept I had at the beginning. The painting has a life of its own… I perceive nature as perfect and feel humble when trying to replicate its beauty on canvas.  I look forward growing into my art and exploring new media and themes. One of my interest is to combine more elements of figurative into my themes of landscape and seascapes.