Through Emily's Eyes: Forest Walk
The theme for the Cariboo Artists’ Guild 2021 Summer Show is, “Through Emily’s Eyes.” Members of the guild have each entered several paintings into the show, with at least one of them having been inspired by the art or writings of Emily Carr. We each interpreted her work and writings about her life and art in our own unique ways. Below is the artist’s statement I submitted for the show, explaining how Emily Carr influenced my painting, “Forest Walk.”
Forest Walk is an 18” X 24”, acrylic on canvas. It can also be viewed in the Acrylic Gallery section of this website.
Theme: Through Emily’s Eyes
Title: Forest Walk
Artist’s Statement:
“A picture is . . . a glimpse of God interpreted by the soul. It is life to some degree expressed.”
I knew very little about Emily Carr or her paintings when I first began this project. I started by checking out her work on the internet, discovering that she was a prolific painter with a bold, almost abstract style. I was mesmerized by her tree paintings and loved the way she matched the movement of the trees with that of the sky and the earth.
After reading journal entries from the book, “Hundreds and Thousands: The Journals of Emily Carr,” I began to see a glimpse into Emily Carr, the artist. Her journals spanned the years between 1927 and 1941. Life during that time was not easy for a single woman trying to support herself as an artist. Although she struggled to make ends meet, she eventually gained acceptance from fellow artists (particularly those from the Group of Seven), and respect from the rest of the art world. I admire her artwork, but I also admire her strength of character, her tenacity and her forward thinking for that time in history. She was truly a pioneer in every sense of the word.
When looking at my finished painting, one might not get an immediate sense that it is anything like an Emily Carr painting. On closer inspection, however, I hope the viewer might notice some of the style choices I made were inspired by the work of Emily Carr. In her journal she wrote,
“The idea must run through the whole, the story that arrested you and urged the desire to express it, the story that God told you through that combination of growth. The picture side of the thing is the relationship of the objects to each other in one concerted movement, so that the whole gets up and goes, lifting the looker with it, sky, seas, trees affecting each other.”
It was this movement I tried to depict, along with connecting the individual elements of the scene to each other in order to create a cohesive whole.
Emily felt that most people who viewed her art did not really understand what she was trying to express, and for that reason, dismissed much of the praise she was given. However, she was deeply moved when she realized that someone truly did understand her art. One entry in her journal told of a woman who felt she had seen God when looking at one of her paintings. Emily was overjoyed at this, regarding it as her highest compliment.
I believe that most of us as artists are awed by some aspect of nature or life and try to express that story through our art. I was inspired by this scene as I walked along a path in the forest. I hope that sense of awe of the divine beauty in nature, as well as a sense of movement and cohesiveness is conveyed through my painting, “Forest Walk.”