Calluna

Throughout my 30 year career there are paintings that I have created that I often refer to and continuously learn from. Whether deliberate or from an unconscious level these pieces hold a heighten significance aesthetically and conceptually in my creative process.

In 2020-2021 , I created a body of work that would eventually be known as the Elemental Series.  I painted these pieces at a time of personal difficulty, struggle, confusion and  toxicity. Paradoxically this collection of works doesn’t physically present any obvious evidence of what I was feeling and witnessing, but instead they seem to speak a metaphysical language with a lyrical dialect.

I painted Calluna in 2021during the cold winter months in my studio in Toronto, Ontario. The purple and violet hues of this piece, along with the movement and asymmetrical composition influenced future pieces in a profound way.

This painting like most of my work dwells in the realm of the unseen. Thematically this piece celebrates the Scottish flowering plant Calluna Vulgaris, commonly known as heather. This glorious species of vegetation grows in the Scottish country side turning green rolling hills and glens to shades of passionate violet and mauve.

Recently Calluna was purchased by a private Toronto collector.

I love what I do and I humbly believe that my work provides a little bit of positivity in a somewhat complicated world.

GRATITUDE- Kirk Sutherland, March 20, 2023