The 905 in the title refers to the telephone area code of the suburbs surrounding Toronto. My relationship to the suburbs has always been one of a passer-by in a car, looking over the
highway barricades as the modern, low-lying buildings rearrange themselves under the vast sky. The familiar landmarks, so ordinary and impersonal that we hardly notice them, through
repetition, become profoundly significant symbols of our time: the ever present Canadian flags, big box malls with big parking lots, modern churches, barns and subdivisions. The car is the
connector between the domestic, commercial, and industrial zones.

The next stage of this project concerns the domestic realm. Initially I was interested in the shock of the large subdivisions as seen from the road: the geometric patterns of rooftops circling
cul-de-sacs, the impersonal facades composed of garages, and the wasteland of treeless construction sites. But it is impossible to ignore the cultural diversity of the new neighbourhoods
growing on the outskirts of Toronto. North of Canada’s Wonderland there is a subdivision called Peace Village built around a mosque. The inhabitants are devout Ahmadiyya Muslims, a
branch of Islam; many are refugees from Pakistan, where they were persecuted by religious extremists.

My recent paintings of Peace Village were produced during a two-month artist residency this spring. Peace Village consists of about 55 paintings (oil on wood 16” x 16” and 24” x 24”) related
to each other thematically: the houses, the mosque, the surrounding landscape, the fabrics of the women’s clothing- religious restrictions prohibit portraiture of women- and portraits of children
in prayer postures. These paintings represent the second part to the series Into the 905: The View From The Car, where multiple images express time and motion through observation of changes
in point of view and condition of light.

I fell into a relationship with the inhabitants of Peace Village simply because I was painting in their public spaces and it happens that in this community, because of the religious and cultural
practices, there is a lot of participation in public life. As well, against of the backdrop of recent international wars, fear of multiculturalism and a growing level of mistrust between Muslims and
non-Muslims, my residency there was recognised by the leadership of the mosque as an opportunity to promote understanding of diversity through art.

My practice integrates formal observational painting, en plein air, with non-traditional subject matter and contemporary conceptual concerns. I am interested in the range and variety of cultures
in Canada: the effects of local culture on the landscape, and the effects of the landscape on daily life.  I am especially interested in bringing forward aesthetic and political aspects of my
surrounding culture that are normally overlooked or misunderstood, but become interesting through observation of the fall of light on surfaces, the placement of forms in space, and of colours,
natural and artificial. These concerns are as much a part of the meaning of my paintings as are the functions of these forms.