Artist Statement
If I were called to define briefly the word ‘Art’, I should call it the reproduction of what the senses perceive in nature, seen through the veil of the soul.
– Paul Cézanne
Alison Philpotts is a landscape painter who works with acrylic paint on large canvas. For inspiration, she draws on the rolling prairie and mountain scenery of Southern Alberta and British Columbia. Alison finds paint to be a natural medium of creative expression. Through the guidance of her father, Alison learned about acrylic painting, mixing colour, effective composition, flow and looseness. She began painting by copying the masters of Canadian landscape (Tom Thompson, A.Y. Jackson), and of European Impressionism (Van Gogh, Cézanne, Monet). From this grounding in 19th and 20th century landscape painting, Alison developed her own form of expression. She works with strong colour to create a feeling, rather than an image, of a place. Whether it is sunlight reflecting off the leaves, shadows in woods and creeks, or the wide spaces around drifting clouds above distant mountain ranges, Alison opens a personal connection to the settings she paints. Her goal is to bring the sensations of the natural environment into an interior space. For Alison, a painting succeeds when it captures the grandeur and serenity of nature and translates these feelings to the viewer, possibly conjuring memories of a place they have been.
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