Painting landscapes drops me into an interior zone—quiet on the surface, wired underneath. The calm comes from muscle memory and years of doing the work. The charge comes from staring something down and not knowing what shape it’ll take until the marks land.

I use pastel and oil because they don’t wait around. They’re immediate, saturated, and honest—perfect for working on site. Most of these pieces were made outside in a handful of Alberta locations.

I stumbled onto the Genesee region about six years ago on one of my scouting drives. There’s a strip of trees along the North Saskatchewan River I was able to paint from after getting permission. West of the river, a dirt road drops into a concealed valley. I’ve painted it from a hill across the way, watching how the land folds in on itself.

Another pull for me is the Sand Hills east of Bruderheim. Like Genesee, barely anyone’s out there. It’s oil country—pumpjacks tucked off gravel spurs, the low drone of chemical plants in the background. The soil’s sandy, the trees are scrubby, and the whole place feels like a forgotten zone with something unnamed simmering under it.

I work fast, while the heat of the moment is still there, trying to catch the pulse of these places. If viewers feel even a bit of that tension—steady or volatile—then the work did its job.