Self-portrait, Susan Tooke

3 Questions: Artist & Curator in Conversation

1. Describe your working process as an artist. 

Moving from Halifax to rural Nova Scotia, I have the opportunity to closely observe the landscape and what I call groundscape of the Annapolis Valley. I hike and gather imagery daily, and use these photographs and sketches as triggers for abstracted interpretation. Through my analysis of distant vistas and minute studies of the debris littering the earth, I have developed a stylized symbolism for the inter-related life forms that surround me. Once the painting has a rough composition, I paint intuitively, responding to each mark, moving across the surface to completion. 

2. What was your source of inspiration for your work in the exhibition? How did the act of art-making help you in reflection on/responding to the pandemic as an artist?
   
When the pandemic arrived I was (and still am) suffering through a deep grieving unlike anything I had ever experienced. Suddenly, my life was not so different from that of the greater community. Richard’s death, less than two years after our move to Port Royal where we were experiencing so much joy, was an enormous shock. He would often roam across the Queen Anne Marsh and I would see him striding home up the access road, giving me a wave that would move his whole body. I began painting the marsh with its wild windswept fields looking up to North Mountain. A red compacted figure appeared through this process, unmoving, closed to the life teaming around it. Because I was already alone, the isolation of the pandemic seemed an extension of what I was already experiencing. 

3. How do you think visual art helps us understand the complex world around us?

Creation is personal, often solitary. However, to the degree that we share a common humanity, we can develop a greater understanding of others and our own existence through the observation and contemplation of visual art.