Change no doubt can be hard.
But in the same breath, it can also be incredibly motivating and inspiring.
For Ontario encaustic painter Susan Wallis, whose upcoming show Changes opens at Elevation Gallery in Canmore on Saturday (May 11), moving from the big city of Toronto to the farming region of Prince Edward County, Ont. was a huge change.
It has, however, proven to be really fruitful.
“It’s been two years living outside in the country and I wasn’t sure how easily that transition would go, being an urban person all of my life,” Wallis said Monday (May 6). “The show mirrors that big change in my life and as a result some of my imagery has changed and some of my interests.”
Even while living in the city, Wallis’s work has been focused on nature, the outdoors and things that grow, and that has not changed with her new body of work.
Her encaustic paintings of trees and bird nests continue to typify her approach, but with the rural influence, she’s also now painting barns, country churches and chickens.
The move with her husband to their 190-year-old farmhouse also inspired her to begin a series of paintings, inspired by the 1956 film, The Red Balloon, that features red balloons carrying suitcases and boxes, as they float over rich green fields.
“I remember as a child they would play (the film) in school. A little boy comes into contact with a red balloon that has a life of its own and follows him through different areas in Paris,” she said. “It’s always been an image that has stuck out in my mind and for some reason this red balloon got into my work and these balloons came to life and they moved to the country and they’re taking their suitcases. It mirrors my own transition from the city to the country.”
Wallis’s work continues to be representational; that hasn’t changed, but what has changed is her approach: She’s using less realism and including more abstraction.
“I’ve become looser in my work and that’s allowing me to grow,” Wallis said. “I try to be a little bolder and open myself up to variations.”
Change, while inspiring, can only go so far.
Wallis said she also needs time away from the studio to rest, refresh and rejuvenate and look.
“Sometimes we don’t look enough at our environment. You just walk by a certain place every day and don’t see it,” she said.
Wallis will be at Elevation Gallery on Saturday for the opening reception from 2-7 p.m.
Changes closes May 19.
She’ll also unveil a five-minute long video that explores her medium and her subject matter over all four seasons.
