WATER BABES

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Like Eric Fischl, my paintings are discovered in photos and with no responsibility to a living model. Informed by a history of art, they are fuelled through my whimsy to recreate a sense of reality. I make fictions. Manipulative and imitative, I hope the narratives create a novelty on canvas that will engage my audience.
This series was inspired by the joy of our constrained (there are inferred dangers) yet liberating (we can float!) play in water. The images were culled from my documentation of an adventure in Lac Lauvignon (near Ste Cecille de Masham, Gatineau Hills). The participants, my chums visiting from Spain, were candidly caught exploring a delightful afternoon of summer sunshine and fresh clear water. Painted in retrospect, the works contain inferences mediated by memory and circumstance : I worked in my studio and the subjects returned to life overseas.
The title was triggered by the memory of an illustrated book from my childhood ("The Water Babies" by C. Kingsley, 1863 illustrated by J.W. Smith in 1916).

- shown as the inaugural exhibition at Centre Gallery (Ottawa,Canada-October 2010).


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