MEGAN DULCIE DILL "Salmon Cycles", August 23 to September 16, 2011 Campbell River Art Gallery

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"The Journey"

Megan Dulcie Dill, "The Journey," oil on wood, 2011.

MEGAN DULCIE DILL

Salmon Cycles, August 23 to September 16, 2011 Campbell River Art Gallery

BY: Janet Nicol

Megan Dulcie Dill’s mixed media paintings celebrate the life cycles of salmon, each work taking up to two years to complete. Her process involves “corrupting” the original layer of a drawing. “I let the paint spill, speckle, resist and flow over the surface so that the initial image is quite obliterated,” she explains. “After this process I erase out areas by vigorously rubbing and carving into the paint and wood surface, trying to find a balance between controlled actions and random spontaneous acts of nature.” Dill grew up on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia, where salmon plays a large part in the local culture. “The images I paint come from a place of respect and awe for this wildlife,” she says. “They are so valuable in the food chain, and also represent for me a spiritual connection to the natural world. Salmon swimming through reflective water provides a great subject for the way I paint. Their shifting lines, emerging forms and luminous transparent colours are always evolving, reflecting and changing. I believe paintings should hit you in the gut — or rest somewhere deep — that painters create this visual language to communicate something beyond words. I like to think of my paintings as a visual narrative.”