Artist Statement
"Lament", 2007
Gareth Bate
Acrylic on Wood

The places in “Lament” are special to me, like Grenadier Pond in Toronto’s High Park and Kings County in Prince Edward Island. These paintings evolved intuitively out of a desire to paint the beauty I see in the nature. However, they become something quite different. The result was often dark, haunted and lonely. For me, a strange melancholy permeates each painting, of human presence felt but never seen.

Landscape painting is fundamental to Canadian identity. Culture is nature as opposed to being some how separate. If we value our environment so intensely, are we willing to make the sacrifices necessary to preserve the biosphere? Will we make difficult choices of self-control, such as not flying and embracing a carbon rationing system? Or will we instead cut the tops off mountains while “waiting for the miracle”? I value this world because I believe this is all we will ever have.

Sometimes the saddest songs are the most inspiring. My hope is not to sink into guilt and despair at the state of the world, but rather to find beauty in the tragic. As an artist I choose to believe that making art will somehow have an impact. That painting is doing. It will make people feel, think and consider. It will motivate and affirm a sense of hope.

This body of work was created while using The 401 Richmond Career-Launcher Prize.

Copyright: Gareth Bate, 2007