In my period of self discovery, I took long walks whenever I felt trapped and confused. Sometimes these walks would last as long as 10 hours and I would explore different parts of my home town, a country side village near Winnipeg, Manitoba. This particular memory is from when I decided to walk across a wet field instead of following the road nearby. In that moment I took off my shoes and walked barefoot through the mud along tractor trails left in the field. Back then I had a fascination with black trench coats and Dharum clove cigarettes.
Oft times I think back on that moment and other times I dream of it with different combinations of memories. Living on the prairies, you partake in the vastness of the sky as there's very little to obstruct the view of it. Since there are no obstructions, the wind is tempestuous and violent which usually leads to unusual cloud formations. Sometimes it looks as though the sky is a carpet of clouds just simply unrolling itself. I tried to reproduce the impression of this effect.
Not too far from where I used to live, there was a tree which only grew leaves on the north side of it. Once I decided to walk right next to it to examine it from close up. It was broken down and half alive, but from a distance, I thought it was beautiful and symbolic of life.
Fall is generally thought of as the step before winter. Trees have a graceful way of going into hibernation by turning their leaves to rich golden and red colours which fly into the cold wind. Instead of painting all the leaves individually, I decided to represent them as a collective. As though it were an organization falling apart slowly.
