Pouch Cove Air was produced at the Pouch Cove Artist Residency, Newfoundland in 2005.

My original project was to paint the weather and it's effect on water and sky. In Toronto in April, between winter and spring, the light is varied and dramatic and the sky is filled with colour. However, in Newfoundland at that time of year, the sky changes only between fog and clear and the steady brightness of the coastal light presented me with different challenges. For most of the time I felt I was wrestling my palette down from the highest register of white, until a final snowstorm turned everything white and after that the range of colour came more easily. As a first time visitor to Newfoundland, it made sense to make an in depth study of a small specific area instead of attempting to represent any larger cultural or aesthetic concept.

The paintings describe my experience of being in this quiet little village: preparing the canvases on the studio floor, the view of the church and graveyard outside the window, the daily walks through the village and down to the water, the ever present ragged rock and most of all, the air.

Martha Eleen 2005

60 paintings, 16" x 16", oil on wood

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