Exhibitions

2025 Liminal Spaces

“Ideas, like waves, have fetches. They arrive with us having travelled vast distances, and their pasts are often invisible, or barely imaginable.”

Robert McFarlane

On looking back at my body of work over the 50 years I have lived in Newfoundland and practised as a full-time professional artist, I can see this sense of displacement in my work. I have focused on themes exploring the underwater ocean world, the fragility of plants in the environment, the exposure of geological formations and, more recently, the movement of the air and light over the landscape. My first geological inspiration came from the many trails I explored in Gros Morne Park in my residency there in 2001, my residency in Terra Nova Park several years later, but also the many journeys I made up the north Labrador coast in 1996-7 as a Canada Council Artist in the Community in Hopedale, Makkovic, Sheshatschui and Rigolet.

The movement of water has been a recurring subject for me. A number of years ago I was commissioned by the Fluvarium to paint the journey of a droplet of rain water from the start of a river to the ocean, with the wildlife above and below the water along the way. More recently I was commissioned to paint a 40-foot backdrop for the displays about the geology of the Manuels River for their new Interpretation Centre. In 2004 I went with a group led by Joe Goudie to canoe for 8 days down the Churchill River from Churchill Falls to the Gull Island Rapids and made a fabric work based on this experience.

Summer Along Rennie’s River Trail acrylic 2024

Liminal apace is a transitional state of space that can be physical or psychological. It is somewhere where you are about to move from one place to another, or from one state to another.

Fall Along Rennie’s River Trail acrylic 2024

It can be eerie, surreal, nostalgic or sad. You feel that you are on the threshold of something new. It is somewhere the feels familiar but slightly different from reality, the period between sleep and wakefulness, or the space between what was and what will be. From the Latin to mean threshold it also describes something barely perceptible or barely capable of eliciting a response.

Exploring Long Pond acrylic diptych 2024

After 46 years living on the East Coast Trail in Shoe Cove I moved to St John’s. Almost all of my life I have lived close to the natural environment which has been the focus of my artwork, but this move created a need for me to refocus my subject matter from the boreal forest and Atlantic cliffs to an urban environment. In an effort to relocate myself I began to photograph Dawn from my bedroom window. For exercise I walked exploring the streets around my new home, but extended these excursions onto the many, beautiful trails along the city waterways.

Dawn

This body of work includes 10 egg tempera paintings of Dawn,

a larger one of dawn through the Narrows of Signal Hill in St John but also the many large and small acrylics of the various views along the city trails. My focus was on the movement of water as it progressed turbulently towards the sea, but I became aware of the many passing walkers along the paths. In these paintings you can see these people as liminal, mystical presences as they pause then move along. The rushing waters of the rivers are always there but the visitors only leave a slight spiritual interruption. In these works I often used layers of crushed Mulberry Bark paper and heavy gel medium to create the rough texture of the undergrowth and rocks.

Turbulence at Rennies river Waterfall acrylic 2024

Peaceful Meanderings Along Virginia River acrylic 2024

Cascading Water on Waterford Linear Trail acrylic 2025

Jumping Rocks on Virginia River Trail acrylic 2025

Rushing Waters on Waterford Linear Trail acrylic 2025

Fishing in Manuel’s River Waterfall acrylic 2025

Peaceful River 1 acrylic 2025

Peaceful river 2 acrylic 2025

Rushing Water Rennie’s River acrylic 2025

Shining Water Virginia River acrylic 2025

South Brook 1 acrylic 2025

South Brook 2 acrylic 2025

Cascade Virginia River acrylic 2025

2022 Wind and Water

A year ago I moved form Shoe Cove, where I lived for 47 years, into the city of St John’s. This was a hard decision as I had lived on four and a half acres of boreal forest that ended in 300-foot-high cliffs on the Atlantic Ocean and was the primary inspiration for my work. The unceasing winds battered the coast, eroding and reshaping the rocky shore, and frequently have been a protagonist in my work. In many of these paintings you will experience these winds: they become visual, make a sound, you can feel them.

At the end of our forest path are the cliffs in “Hollow Cove”. The oil painting of these ice bedecked, precipitous heights was featured on the cover, with an article inside, in American Psychologist in October 2021 so I included it in the current show. This can be seen on my homepage.

“A Thin White Line” was inspired by a photograph by Gerald Vaandering of the small, waterfall in the same cove, frozen as a winter drawing on the rocks.

Waterfalls and rovers appear in some new egg tempera paintings. In August 2020 I visited the codroy valley and south-west corner of Newfoundland. The lushness of this verdant valley is a prolific agricultural area and is baackdropped by the Long Range Mountain chain that runs from the Appalachians to Gros Morne and onto the Pennines in England. Their profile is an awe-inspiring backdrop to these small, egg tempera works

and extends to create the cliffs in

Barraachois Waterfall

and the exposed, famous valley for

Wreckhouse Winds

where enormous transport trucks can be blown off the Trans Canada highway.

Two other paintings in the exhibition can be seen in the next post.

2021 International Juried Exhibition Society of Canadian Artists

I was delighted to have two recent works accepted into this exhibition.

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This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Can-you-see-the-wind-24x72-a-1024x343.jpg — Can You See The Wind?

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is with-the-light-comes-the-wind-a.jpg — With The Light Comes The Wind

2021 Beyond The Edge

Canadian Society of Painters in Watercolour

2019 Edgelines

Since 1998, during an 18 month Artist –In-The-Community project in Hopedale, I became increasingly fascinated by the particular geology of Newfoundland and Labrador. My focus has narrowed to the coastal terrain where the weathered rocks and cliffs expose the patterns and forms of the eroding shore. The East Coast Trail runs along the cliff of my home in Shoe Cove and is a constant source of inspiration. I work from an initial, personal contact but develop the subject from there. Often the coastal view is obscured by the fringing boreal forest so I make the trees transparent to expose the cliffs and ocean vista and link the branches and twigs into the rhythms of the ocean currents.

In 2017 during two periods spent exploring the north side of Conception Bay to Grates Cove, I discovered the elusive, foggy view across to Baccalieu Island which reinvigorated memories of sailing through Baccalieu Tickle many years before. Salmon Cove, Black Head Cove, The Mousehole and Flambro Head were discovered along this coast and appear in several paintings in the exhibition.

The following works are all painted in traditional egg tempra.

*Jackson’s Arm, Main River, Evening light, White Bay, Sentinel Roc*k

*Bellevue Beach, Rushing Water, Long Pond, Windy Trees*

2016 0n the Edge

Christina Parker Gallery, St John’s, Newfoundland

The paintings in this collection are about the strategic skills used by plants that are growing in challenging environments. The results of this interaction are often unexpected and fascinating to me. Many times I wonder if my progress in life would have been entirely different if Science had been taught at the girl’s school I attended in Zimbabwe. The excitement generated in observing and becoming educated about the plant kingdom has almost become an obsession. Through this challenge of self education, and the Newfoundland environment around me, I have been exploring the geological effects that change and enhance the accompanying verdure.

iceland waterfallb — *Arctic Waterfall, Iceland 2015 acrylic*

*Death Valley View, California 2015 acrylic*

lionsdenb — *Lion’s Den, Fogo Island, Newfoundland 2016 acrylic*

2015 My Appendix! (Online exhibition)

In 2013 and 2014 I spent a lot of time experiencing the medical system in St John’s. It started August 13 with extreme pain which, after 24 hours, took me to hospital Emergency with life-threatening perforated appendix and toxic infection! I was there on serious antibiotics for 10 days and discharged, only to return a day later with a pulmonary effusion from a blood clot in the right lung and a further 21 days. I was ill for months with a return attack, warfarin and surgery until April 2014.

The whole experience left me with vivid images that were persistently in my mind, so I painted them out … and here they are!

Miasma 1 The Agony

Miasma 2 The rescuing daughter

Miasma 3 Spider in the lung

Miasma 4 Near to death

Miasma 5 Drowning

Miasma 6 Claiming the Moon

Miasma 7 The dwarf, the virgin and the wicked queen

Miasma

This word came into my head spontaneously as a title for these works, and then I looked it up in the dictionary ……
a noxious influence
a poisonous atmosphere rising from putrid matter and causing disease
noxious vapours from decomposing organic matter
poisonous effluvia or germs
a dangerous foreboding or deathlike influence or atmosphere
mephitis, fetor
contagion or corruption

…. and it seemed to fit!

2014 Floral Fantasy

Crevice Garden 2014 watercolour 10 x 29 in

Pansy Polka 2014 watercolour 10 x 29 in

Iris Waltz watercolour 10 x 29 in

Donna Clouston and I had a 2-person exhibition at the MUN Botanical Garden in St John’s. We both worked in watercolour from materials we collected on spring trips to the garden centres.

2012 Fractured Forms at Christina Parker Gallery

Orchid Shadow 10 acrylic on canvas 12 x 24 in

2011 International Women Celebrate

AyrSpace, Ontario

Salt Fish acrylic on canvas 12 x 12 in

2010 A Little Spring Fling

Fog Forest Gallery, Sackville, New Brunswick

Tulip Fandango a silk book 10 x 6 x 30 in

2009 Shorelines at Christina Parker Gallery

Middle Cove oil 32 x 60 in

Banded Gneiss, Hopedale, Labrador oil 24 x 48 in

2009 Migration Devon House Craft Gallery (group show)

Emily’s New Home fibre and transfer mobile 60 x 12 x 12 in

2009 Contours Devon House Craft Gallery (group show)

The Grand River Adventure wallhanging 30 x 54 in

2009 Cupids 400

Devon House Craft Gallery group

Cupids 400 wallhanging 54 x 30 in

2007 Ethereal Christina Parker Gallery

Icefog egg tempera 24 x 48 in

2006 Rocks-Capes Christina Parker Gallery

Western Brook Pond egg tempera 24 x 48 in

2006 Internal Landscapes Devon House Craft Gallery

This exhibition was about experiencing breast cancer in 1998 – 1999

How I Celebrated the Millennium dyes on silk 36 x 84 in

2005 Light-Stream

An exhibition with Carol BajenGahm Christina Parker Gallery

Down the River egg tempera 5 x 7 in each

2002 Groundcover

These were paintings made during or after an artist residency in Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland.

Alpine Campion in the Gulch

Arethusa Orchids at Western Brook Pond

Green Point

2000 Trace Devon House Craft Gallery group show

Celtic Trace dyes on silk and papier mache mask 84 x 45 x 6 in

2000 Castles in the Sea — All About Icebergs

This was an exhibition following a collaboration to produce a children’s book about icebergs with Laura Jackson, written by her husband, Lawrence Jackson.

Glacier Calving dyes on silk

1997 — 1999 Pathways

This was a two person, installation exhibition with Tara Bryan inspired by the East Coast Trail between my home in Shoe Cove and her home in Flat Rock just north of St John’s. It travelled through Ontario and Eastern Canada.

Over the river and to Shoe Cove Island

Looking through the trees at Small Point

To Red Head

1997 Discovery

A small group show that toured the Maritime galleries.

Bird Islands in Witless Bay

1989 – 1992 Tropical Garden/Newfoundland Stream Provincial Art Gallery

These works are from the Tropical Garden of my home in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe contrasted to the wildflowers of my present home in Newfoundland.

Our pergola festooned with Golden Shower

Newfoundland Stream

1985 Old Fields — New Paths

This exhibition of Canadian Crafts was exhibited in Japan and New Zealand. My silk book,To Find A Pitcher Plant, commemorated a walk with my mother around Berry Hill Pond with my mother in 1982.

The cover