Susan Tooke at Long Branch Studios

A waterfall within a damp ravine of the rainforest in Goldstream Provincial Park, BC, I worked from a study done on site.  By further simplifying and abstracting the image, I drew the lines of movement and the exaggerated angles formed as rock and trees collapse toward the forest floor.

Veronique MacKenzie (dancer/choreographer), Lukas Pearse (sound designer) and I have been working on a collaborative project involving movement, animation, and sound, with each of these elements responding and interacting with the other.  Last night at Nocturne in Halifax, we presented our explorations  to the public.  A truly absorbing and expanding experience, working with these two great professionals in other disciplines.  Thanks to Richard Rudnicki for help with set up, take down and photography.  Here are some images from last night. View of crowd at gate with one of the projections above. Looking down Granville Street with projection down the block. Lukas Pearse, with his complex technical setup was the master puppeteer. At 9, Lukas went off to another gig, after instructing me on how to run the sound, blend the videos with the live dance.  View from Granville Street with all three projections.   All of the projections were ...

A lily pond at midsummer:  how do you paint this subject without the cloying sweetness that florals often have, and yet maintain the feeling of 'pond'?  The dominant blue green suggests a gentler landscape; in the stillness of dawn wet grasses and lily pads balance in damp air and pond water.

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.