Lakeshore Meditations

“To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.” 

Mary Oliver, from Yes! No!

 

This series of paintings grew out of the artist’s practice of neighbourhood walks from her home in Summerland. MacIntosh’s regular walk takes her along the shore of Lake Okanagan where she makes an intentional pause to sit near water’s edge and look across the lake to the opposite shore. She then documents this pause with a set of photographs. The time of day and the frequency of walks varies with climate, road conditions and travel interruption, yet they constitute an ongoing form of ritual that has been followed by the artist for close to two years. The process of creating the multilayered, formatted, abstract paintings in the studio serves as a contemplative exercise that incorporates the lake and landscape colours photographed each day. Each work includes intentional, constrained elements as well as spontaneous, intuitive interactions and altogether the artworks form a visual inventory and meditation on particular moments at a particular place. The contrast of gridded/random dots and solid/expressive colours speak to the interface of life’s predictability and uncertainty.