Susan Tooke at Long Branch Studios

Tamarack, West Coast Newfoundland, acrylic on board, 4' x 5' The stunted and sun-bleached bones of tamarack litter the beaches on the west coast of Newfoundland.  Tortured branches create a visual testament to the tenacity of life along the North Atlantic shoreline, while colourful stones, tumbled by the sea, mix with driftwood and debris from nearby outports.  I am seeing a continued progression toward abstraction both with my choice of subjects and my interpretation of them.

Back to my painting after a Titanic interlude and the MASC conference for young illustrators and writers in Ottawa.  It is an enjoyable, if intense, process to paint for me: to interpret more than with optical accuracy, but to still retain the emotional connection to the landscape.   I am freed from the pedantic! Cape Breton Spring 48" x 60" acrylic on wood panel                                 

We had an exciting rehearsal today, with all of the pieces coming together... Lukas Pearse creating an electroacoustic score, real-time video processing.  Infra-red sensors allow for Veronique MacKenzie to enter the animations; her exquisite choreography touches the heart.  I am so happy to be part of this collaboration.  Tim Tracey was invaluable in his technical and artistic advice. The following are several stills from the animation/videos.

I am working on an exciting project with Veronique MacKenzie(dancer/choreographer and Lukas Pearse (sound design) for the 100th memorial of the sinking of the Titanic.  The image is from video of Veronique taken by Tim Tracey and further developed by me... It will be an exciting show.  Please come! " Large-scale projection pulls us into the haunting and tragic story of the maiden voyage of the Titanic with layers of animation and historical images. Combined with live dance performance and captured by infrared camera, they are woven into ghostly images using real-time video processing. This abstract narrative retells a story of courage and the ensuing darkness that overtook them on that fateful night. The immersive sound score draws into the emotion of the event and underwater imagery pulls us down to the final resting place and into the Depths of Sorrow. Depths of Sorrow: A multimedia performance with visual artist and animator Susan Tooke, audio/visual composer Lukas Pear...

Kej Woodland (acrylic on canvas, 36"x 60") interprets the damp mossy woods of October in Nova Scotia. The patterns of the leaves drift across the trunks of uprooted trees, the ferns turn golden with the shorter days, and grasses lose the strength to stand upright at the end of the growing season.

Another spot on the High Head hike is this incredible cove, filled with rocks tumbled into spheres by the tide.  As the tide rises, a spout of water is forced through the granite formations, lending itself to be christened by Richard and me as Spittle Cove.  It is also the location of one of my early paintings entitled "Fifteen", after my daughter, Amy, who posed as a figure in the landscape.  27 years separate these two paintings.

One of my favourite hikes is the High Head Trail, Lower Prospect, NS. Near the beginning of the hike, a stream courses through rocks, just stepping stones at high tide, but as seen here at low tide, a trickle of water is trapped until the surge of the next tide releases it. Inlet at High Head, acrylic on wood panel, 36" x 48"