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installation shot of "Woodlands" at Gallery Page and Strange

  

Visual Viewpoints: Tooke invites viewers to Woodlands show

the Chronicle Herald, Arts and Life, September 18, 2013 - 5:41pm 

BY ELISSA BARNARD ARTS REPORTER

I have been to Hemlock Ravine, but I have never seen it the way 
Halifax artist Susan Tooke does.

Her woods teem in colour and line in a cheerful and exciting new 
show, Woodlands, at Gallery Page and Strange at 1869 Granville St. 
in Halifax until Sept. 27.

The side of each wood panel is painted in the acrylic colour — red, 
or teal, or royal blue or green — that will dominate the background 
of each image. With eye-popping colour, outlines and a visceral 
energy in her lines and abstracted forms, Tooke continues to create 
an exalted experience of the land that she first introduced in her 
show, Transformation, two years ago at Page and Strange.A scarlet 
line races along a fallen blue log, mauve water and ice dance before

rust-coloured pines, dead, jagged vertical trunks are built out of 
vigorous blue lines. The award-winning illustrator of children’s books 
and creator with Veronique Mackenzie and Lukas Pearse of the 
interactive installation Motion Activated, opening Sept. 27 at 
ARTsPLACE, also exhibits paintings of rushing streams in the woods
 of the Cape Breton Highlands. Two are hung together in an
intriguing conversation of colour and motion. Tooke, who is
influenced by artists such as Emily Carr, aimed for a softer, 
springlike tone in painting of liberating greens. 

Her intent is to express the “soul” of the landscape,
                                                                       and she succeeds.