Alan Bain

Contact me:

alanbain@cogeco.ca

Artist's Statement

Alan J.T. Bain

CSPWC OWS

I paint the Boreal Canada; a land incredibly rich in diversity, a constant offering of pristine wilderness. My paintings are both a recollection and a reminiscence. Since most of them are painted "plein air" I like to think of them as visual tape recordings. With them, even months later, I’m immersed once more in their surroundings, all the senses register, the wind and sun, the sounds of nature, the mood I felt, and through my paintings I reminisce again with a land that talks to me.

My paintings are a distillation of that experience.

So I paint the northwoods as I know them. I love the play of water in all its moods, the smoky mysteries of a Labrador bog, the empty silence of an ancient burn, the soft winds that always greet you at the top of a rock ridge, and the those long views over rolling breaks of black spruce with a distant crystal flash of water.

Years later I can enjoy my paintings for the way they recall all those experiences. If I had never sold a single one of these painting, they would still, each of them, talk to me again of the ageless and constant lure of our northwoods. So now, as friends view my paintings, I hope they too will feel the sun, smell the earth, hear the pace of woodlife and, if some of this is in their response, my job is done.

But when travel becomes difficult I turn to my second love, the rural Ontario scene. Audrey and I travel the country scene seeking the houses, barns and sheds that, although old and crumbling, are the silent sentinels with such stories to tell of a kinder, gentler lifestyle.

The Gossips