Susan Tooke at Long Branch Studios

The south shore of Nova Scotia -- the spruce trees clinging to the rocky ground, the tidal pools left behind amid the worn granite of the shoreline.  My solo exhibition at Gallery Page and Strange continues through August 26.

             Please join me Friday, August 5th between 6-8 p.m.   Gallery Page and Strange 1869 Granville St. Halifax, NS B3J 1Y1 902-422-8995 www.pageandstrange.com Susan Tooke Transformation August 5 - 26, 2011 Opening August 5th from 6PM to 8PM - Artist in Attendance Susan Tooke is a Halifax artist with a rich background in art making.  The first twenty years of her practice focused on social realism, with photographic reference and precise representation.  This led to ten years of  book illustration during which time she created a number of award winning picture books for various national publishers. In 2009 Susan traveled to Sable Island.  "Frustrated with the limits of my style, I began to work toward a more expressive abstraction of the landscape, using it as a point of departure for work based on my emotional response to the energy of the environment around me." The result is ve...

Patterns formed in rock stressed by the elements,  the Nova Scotian South Shore is pounded by the North Atlantic. In various stages of deconstruction, and construction, the landscape is most dramatic where sky, sea and earth meet.

My trip to Sable, and friendship with Zoe Lucas has moved my studio painting into fresh ground with room for imagination and experimentation.  Discovering the feeling of a place, and examining my own emotional response while experiencing an environment has led me to a new way of seeing the world. 

Richard and I spent a week on Sable Island in August, 2009.  While there, we spent all of our time painting the landscape en plein air.  This was to be a pivotal experience for me.. I was pressed to find a way of expressing the landscape in a more immediate way.  Working on illustrations for Free as the Wind, written by Jamie Bastedo, Red Deer Press, I came to know Zoe Lucas.  Her friendship has opened up the world of Sable Island to me, and I am grateful for this.

Large canvases are crowding the studio.  Enormous skies, open views are demanding space.  So much action above affecting the earth, the earth reflects the activity in the sky, the sea pulling back and rushing in--the Fundy shore near Great Village, Nova Scotia.

When I was in Goose Bay, Labrador, at the Arts Festival, I did get out briefly into the country.  The red canoe, stashed above the tideline, the driftwood angled against the solitary stone, the November snow and far shore made a lasting impression.  The silence of winter.