The Fairmont Suite, 2023.
The Inaugural ARTIST IN RESIDENCE PROGRAM with The FAIRMONT HOTEL, WINNIPEG.
Showcasing Manitoba Artists Downtown…
The Artist in Residence program at the Fairmont Hotel, launched July 20th in Winnipeg. I am happy to share at last that I have five large works involved in this Inaugural collaboration between The Pulse Gallery and Fairmont Winnipeg. You can visit my work in the Foyer. I share the stories of process and intention in this blogpost below.
Ian Taylor, General Manager for Fairmont Winnipeg explains the initiative.
”We are at the heart of the City, surrounded by the Arts, culture and business which makes Winnipeg such an amazing place to be. We want to celebrate that rich culture and are excited to welcome Amanda Onchulenko, Charlie Johnston, Cindy Dawson, and Wendy Severson as the First artists to be a part of our Artist-in Residence-Program”.
Accepting a Challenge…
At the request of Pulse Gallery founder, Lesly Dawyduk, I began a new series of work for this exciting collaboration in the spring of 2023. I love to paint and I love to paint large.
Plan, what plan?
Every artist has a creative signature that determines the choices they make with materials and processes along the way to completing their work in their chosen media. The marks I make with my painterly signature are what lead the way through my compositions. A painting becomes a visual story with punctuation marks made in colour using colour reactions to direct the action. The finished product is entirely dependant on the choices made by its creator. In my case my work begins with a general idea, subject, or intention but I allow the composition to evolve through the process of painting.
Inspiration…
The Natural world on the Prairie provides a diverse and nuanced subject that inspired a starting point for the project I am calling The Fairmont Suite. A starting point is just that, a beginning. A painting, for me, evolves from my initial marks on a surface into a series of layers.
What do you call that?
Semi abstracted landscape is a term readily applied to my work as a painter inspired by the landscape in which I reside. As with most commissions, I undertook two versions of the mandate. The first trio began in the garden with a macro focus. A second group flowed more easily after I felt I had satisfied the request made. The second series leaned more toward the prairie’s expansive nature and it is the second group that will be on display in the foyer of the Winnipeg Fairmont.
The “Fairmont Suite: Poppies, Grace and Giddy “, 48” x 48”, each. Acrylic on Birch, 2023, shown as a diptych. The poppy series are not included in the Fairmont Residency but are available for in person viewing on request.
A tiny studio produces large paintings.
The two versions of the 4’ x 12’ request added to the challenge of a tiny studio space,. With only 8’ of linear painting wall I could accommodate only 2 of the 6 panels at any given time. I spent a couple of months lifting and carrying large, heavy, awkward panels and may have also spent some quality time with my chiropractor once the project was completed.
My intentions…
“My personal process merges the structure of composition with memory, circumstance and intention.”
My aim is never to replicate my inspiration, instead I strive to capture the essence of a moment, to describe with this body of work, the energetic experience of landscape. In deciding on subject I find I am drawn to the cheeky personalities of the Prairie’s perennial inhabitants. I’m also inspired by the fertile abundance of this place, the rich and prosperous earth at the heart of a nation. I am home here, where the horizon levels my gaze and I share my experience of the prairies in loose colour on canvas or board.”
Fairmont Suite: Unsettlers, Acrylic on Canvas 48” x 48'“, 2023
On exhibit, The Fairmont Hotel, Winnipeg, after July 20, 2023.
This series celebrates the diversity and energy of a landscape that to the uninitiated, at first glance, might appear static and uninspiring.
Artist Statement…
I was asked to add an artist statement for each piece of the series. The image above is the left side of the three grouped images that introduce my version of Manitoba to visitors as they enter the Fairmont Hotel.
“Un- Settlers” is a symbolic diaspora, a parade populated visually with perennial players. The cheeky personalities of this reflective scene are examples of; resilience, strength, courage, grace and fortitude.The characters of this visual story are deeply rooted, grounded in fertile soil, yet they dance a complex operatic sonata choreographed seasonally by the elements.
A little backstory…
When our girls were barely tweens we ventured south of the city with a plant scientist friend and a carload of young girls. My Friend introduced us to the unforgettable immersive experience of mature grasslands in Manitoba’s Tall Grass Prairie. I would be hard pressed to return to the exact location of our memorable adventure without detailed instructions but I do recall it was part of a biodiverse, protected habitat under the stewardship of the Nature Conservancy of Canada.
“Un-settlers” takes its theatrical cue from the giant quivering blue stem grasses my tall girls were dwarfed by and the perennial cast that supported them. The assortment of vegetation we encountered came in all shapes and sizes.
“If you are not from the Prairies you don’t know the wind”.
I recalled the Children’s book by David Bouchard as we experienced first hand any breath of wind reverberating across this distinctive eco system.
Painting with intention…
With this trio I intended to highlight different aspects of the local landscape. I love a little incidental green space and I find untended urban spaces and side road ditches to be enthralling. Manitoba’s extended daylight hours and rich, rich soil contribute to the diversity of vegetation that flourishes, everywhere. The greens and blues I chose to dominate the foreground in this panel symbolize the greens of youth, growth and diversity. The blues are representative of shadow created in the sub layers of the growing community. They create a subtext and make reference to parts of our province as an inland ocean.
Colour is a big part of my studio practice
FAIRMONT SUITE; LEVELLING UP, Acrylic on Canvas, 48” x 48”, 2023
Artist Statement…
In the game of life the largest payouts are often found along the road less travelled. Summertime saturates our flatlands with an abundance of intoxicating colour that leads us through uncluttered expansive views to the horizon. Colour and composition are the game time winners of this compositional duel.
A little backstory…
I became acquainted with a Prairie Boy in 1990 and have spent more time driving west along the Trans Canada and Yellow Head Highways than I have across my native Australia.
“Levelling Up” is ripe with summer’s abundance. It is a reminder of infinite road trips, the playing of eye spy with kids or taking in the rich and intoxicating colour that led us through uncluttered expansive views as we travelled west.
Grandma’s might have been our destination but the colours and patterns of the natural world became my inspiration. Many bodies of work have been inspired by family road trips that took us past midsummers contrasting quadrants of canola and flax under the intensity of deep blue Prairie skies.
Painting with intention…
Colour and contrast are a big part of my studio practice. I often underpaint with contrasts and encourage the early layers to peak through to the surface of the finished painting. These compositional details tend to add visual energy to the surface and help to lead the viewer through the composition. The windbreaks, expansive canola fields, cobalt skies and curious clouds of this panel infer the abundance of a maturing landscape, a landscape that has been home to Ukrainian immigrants since 1891. The blue and yellow of the Ukrainian Flag comes into play symbolically, as earth and atmosphere, and reflects a personal generational connection to the prairies.
FAIRMONT SUITE: LUMINOSITY, Acrylic on Canvas, 48” x 48”, 2023.
Artist Statement…
“The star quality of an august afternoon in the Keystone Province resonates in the pinking sky of this prairie portrait. Twilight casts a luminous glow across the ripe and abundant expanse, inviting a seasonal pause in a world where our only constant is change. Lake country is at the heart of many.”
A little backstory…
Our connection to summer rituals and community experiences takes place along the western shores of Lake Winnipeg at Ponemah, in Manitoba’s Interlake. Sunday night return trips to the city tend to extend into the lengthening days particularly in August when twilight casts a luminous glow across the ripening, colourful expanse. I prefer to be the passenger on the way home. Doing my homework, witnessing the luminous skies, while savouring a pause in the transition between recreation and vocation.
Painting with intention…
I try to paint loosely. When asked about process and how long things take I like to use the analogy of a runner. When a runner first laces up shoes and sets out, the pace is slower and everything feels a little heavy. It takes some time to set a comfortable pace, to get into the groove or flo. And so it is with painting.
Brushstrokes in the under layers of this panel invited loose outlines with liquid acrylic that were applied with a wet flippy brush to suggest weedy, untended growth. The richness of spring greens has faded with summers ripening heat, while the sky is resonate with the glow of twilight reflected through the dust of working fields late in the growing season.
“An Ocean of Earth in Motion”
“Big Pink”, Acrylic on Birch Panel, 48” x 48”, 2023
This painting joins the FAIRMONT SUITE SERIES. Find this big girl at reception in the foyer at the Fairmont Hotel, Winnipeg, greeting visitors
“In life and in Art, our only constant is change.”
When Lesly and Lori of Pulse Gallery first visited my studio ahead of my April “Spring Fling” at the Gallery, they were both drawn to the painting above.
Big Pink is the beginning of a new direction for me and a reminder that change really is a constant. I began the underpainting with black gesso having not used black for more that 20 years in my work. Instead I added compliments together to create darks. This helped me to avoid muddying my colour palette and gave much of my work its signature intensity.
Big Pink is a departure. It features black in the under layers and I am liking the direction these new marks are taking. This painting, for me, was also an invitation; to explore the new, to be reminded to follow the road less travelled where the unexpected can be revealed.
FAIRMONT SUITE: Growth: Wisdom, Acrylic on Birch Panel, 40” x 60”, 2023. This painting greets visitor as they enter the hotel from the parkade and oversees the action of the lounge.
What’s in a name?
In recent years I have begun most works by setting an intention and inscribing that word into the surface of the painting. Wisdom and Inner Resource are the terms I inscribed into a pair of panels as I prepped the surface to paint. The first of this pair sold quickly, while “Growth: Wisdom”, became the last piece to be included in the Fairmont Suite.
The large circular motif in “Growth: Wisdom”, shown above, is a residual mark that was set with that initial intention. This piece is fresh off the paint wall and representative of where my painting practice is currently trending.
“Each season at the studio brings something new and I look forward to seeing where new marks will take me."
Winter skies at Ponemah, Lake Winnipeg.
Twilight inspiration on Manitoba’s Prairie.
Colour on the Prairies…
My favourite colour Golden’s Quinacridone red light has recently been discontinued. The end of my last tube was used in The Fairmont Suite project. The photographs above taken from our Ponemah cottage illustrate quinacridone red light in the winter landscape. Manitoba’s landscape is full of surprises, nuances and saturated colour in every season.
Being present in my Painting Practice…
Creativity and painting in particular, is my avenue to presence. The process quiets me as it draws me in to the action of problem solving in colour. Engaged, painting, time can literally fly by. This following image is of “Big Pink” in progress on the paint wall. I have included it here because it gives a sense of scale and illustrates the physicality required in the process.
“Big Pink” in progress on the paint wall. 48” x 48”, acrylic on birch panel.
Sidenote…
“If not now, when?”… “Why not me ?”
Landscape is inspiration for the painter in me. In 2021 I stepped out of my comfort zone and the result was a podcast sharing my accented voice introducing the backstories of some of my paintings. The aim of each episode is to introduce my work, hoping to help you to connect to your own stories through my examples.
I conclude each episode with a related guided meditation. We can all benefit from find a little peace and quiet, within the busy lives we lead.
Find my podcast, WISDOM AT THE CROSSROADS on all listening platforms.
Below I have included a Mindful Mandart Moment inspired by the triptych “Breathing Space” introduced in Episode 11 of the Podcast. This short episode of self care inspires a meditative journey where colour in the landscape is invited to flow. I invite you to listen in, to encourage the vital energy around and within you, to grow”. I hope you enjoy it.
Thank you..
Lesly and Lori of The Pulse Gallery and The Fairmont Hotel, Winnipeg for the invitation to be a part of this initiative celebrating local art and our local lands. And finally, Thank you, for reading to the end of this blog post. If you have questions or comments please feel free to drop me a line or find me on Instagram between posts.
To keep in touch…
Sign up for my newsletter using the QR code below or send me message and I’ll add you to the subscribers list. It’s free. I try to do a monthly note but sometimes its seasonal and occasionally biweekly.
Head to The Pulse Gallery Winnipeg here for more info on available works.
xo Amanda