Lesley Finlayson, "River Valley Series 12," 2017
oil on canvas, 20" x 28"
When Vancouver artist Lesley Finlayson was offered a show at The Front Gallery in Edmonton, she decided to do a new body of work about the North Saskatchewan River.
She spent a week last fall drawing in the river's valley, focused less on geography and more on capturing the particularities of light and colour as she sketched weedy stands of poplar and the river's lazy currents.
Back in the studio, she used her drawings to create paintings that flicker between representation and abstraction.
“I think the landscape always defines the mark-making as well as the colour that I choose to work with in a painting,” she says.
Finlayson seeks what she calls the core of the experience: “The scale of the place, the sound of the wind in those trees that were getting super crisp. It really did feel like it was a finale I was in. It felt like a great crescendo happening in the landscape. I wanted to capture that sense of a year ending.”
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Lesley Finlayson, "River Valley Series 4," 2017
oil on canvas, 42" x 42"
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Lesley Finlayson, "River Valley Series 5," 2017
oil on canvas, 42" x 42"
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Lesley Finlayson, "River Valley Series 1," 2017
oil on canvas, 40" x 40"
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Lesley Finlayson, "River Valley Series 11," 2017
oil on canvas, 20" x 28"
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Lesley Finlayson, "River Valley Series 3," 2017
oil on canvas, 42" x 42"
Finlayson grew up in Scotland, but came to Canada to do her Master’s degree at the University of Calgary.
She then moved to Vancouver, where she raised a family and taught art at Langara College for more than two decades.
She tried to instill her love of drawing into her students.
“You’re drawing out the information you want,” she says. “I love the selection process of drawing. I see it as work in its own right, but it’s also a critical part of getting to the painting.”
Finlayson’s show, Culmination, which runs from March 16 to April 10, is her first solo exhibition in Edmonton. She is also represented by the Elissa Cristall Gallery in Vancouver and Fault Line Projects, a new gallery on Salt Spring Island.
