The Backlands


Continuing with my interest in the subject of woodlands, I discovered the Backlands last year. With artist Richard Rudnicki and David Patriquin, professor of Biology, environmentalist, and member of the Backlands Coalition, I came to understand this area as a rare and unique ecosystem just a few kilometres from peninsular Halifax.

works on paper: India ink and acrylic on Fabriano hot press water colour paper, 300 lb.

Tree bones, the Backlands

Golden stream, the Backlands

Woodlands and Watersheds: new work by Susan Tooke, Gallery Page and Strange

          Woodlands and Watersheds:  Gallery Page and Strange                                    April 25-16, 2014

With compositions inspired by woodland streams— nature is abstracted, the energy expressed trough animated line and organized through vibrant colour and form. 

Well known for her illustrations in children's literature, Tooke's studio practice exhibits a more dynamic approach. Influenced by artists such as Emily Carr, Tooke exaggertes and simplifies the existing colours found in nature. Patterns create the textures of the earth to express the "soul" of the landscape.

Blue stream tangled wood 36" x 48", acrylic on canvas

Dry stream bed Fishing Cove Trail, 48" x 36", acrylic on canvas

Near Shannon Falls, 36" x 48", acrylic on canvas

Pot Lake Bluff Wilderness Trail, 36" x 48", acrylic on canvas

Fallen spruce The Barrens, 36" x 60", acrylic on canvas 

Two rocks three logs, Bluff Wilderness, 30" x 30", acrylic on canvas

Stream Acadian Trail, 36" x 60", acrylic on canvas

Dry Stream Fishing Cove Trail, 3' x 4' acrylic on canvas

 Fishing Cove Trail in the Cape Breton Highlands is a fairly gruelling descent of 355 metres from the top of MacKenzie Mountain through the forest to Fishing Cove.  Parts of the trail seem more like dry stream beds, with a tumble of moss and lichen-covered rock, and tree roots.  Using a turquoise underpainting, then drawing with cadmium red, I completed the work with  exaggerated colours, simplified patterns and shapes, building a composition which shows the delicacy and impermanence of the structures.  The natural landscape seems disorganized, but a rhythm, a tension develops as colour and line pull the disparate elements into energetic harmony. 

  

Stream with blue log

Stream with blue log

The purple under-painting covers the unknown, the dense mystery of the woodland teaming with birth, growth and decay.  The stream flows through mossy rocks, tumbled debris on the forest floor and disappears back into the undergrowth. 

Stream with blue log, 4' x 5', acrylic on canvas 

detail: Stream with blue log

detail: Stream with blue log

Lake Edge, Bluff Trail

Through hikes in the wilderness of Nova Scotia, I collect memories of landscapes, which, due to the transformative effect of nature through time, no longer exist.  Once I pass through, the light, season, interaction of various animals, change. The painting becomes a trace of what once was… but that trace is more than that.  It is a collected perception formed at that time through the experience of being there. These sensory impressions are themselves dissolving and reforming with decisions based on composition, colour, addition, simplification, subtraction.  Lake Edge, Bluff Trail is a moment filtered, a moment shifted, altered and preserved.

Lake Edge, Bluff Trail, 3' x 4', acrylic on canvas

Streams crisscross the wilderness of Cape Breton Highlands, sometimes pouring down rock faces, other-times spreading out across the floor of the Acadian forest. They reveal and conceal, erode and build, carry and deposit: a life force traveling down to the sea.

Stream in Blue: Acadian Trail, Cape Breton,  18" x 24", acrylic on canvas

Hiking this past summer and fall provided lots of inspiration for new work.  Landscapes provide a starting point: "Art picks up where nature ends.": Marc Chagall.  

Two rocks three logs Bluff Wilderness 30" x 30" acrylic on canvas

Along the Acadian Trail, Cape Breton Highlands National Park, streams rush to join the Chéticamp River.  Tumbled trunks and mossy banks line the brook on its way to the bottom of the valley.

Stream: Acadian Trail  30" x 60"  acrylic on canvas