‘Art carries what is too heavy for language to hold.’ — Amy Sherald

I acknowledge that I live and work as a settler on Treaty 6 Territory, the traditional lands of the Cree, Saulteaux, Dene, Dakota, Lakota, and Nakota Nations, and the homeland of the Métis Nation. I am grateful for the ongoing presence and stewardship of Indigenous communities. On this land and in this place, we strive to learn together, walk together, and grow together ‘in a good way.’

In 1960 I was born in Fiske, Saskatchewan, Canada, to German-speaking Mennonite parents. My ancestors were row crop farmers, originally from the Zaporizhia region of present-day Ukraine, who arrived in 1923 and established themselves on this land.

As a teenager, I received early formal training in life drawing at the Banff Centre, and later earned a BFA from Concordia University in Montreal and an MFA from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. I currently live and work in Saskatoon.

My artwork first came to public attention through portraiture, and later, in the mid-1990s, with expansive wall drawings. These site-specific works, composed of numerical sequences in a variety of coloured fonts, explored themes of seasonal time and impermanence.

This diaristic approach has evolved considerably since then, and in early 2008 I began a studio challenge to complete one painting each month. Initally structured around the yearly calendar, the intention was to reimagine traditional forms of record-keeping. The catalyst for this context was the emergent technology of smartphones as a personal journal. Over the years, this working method has expanded to include photography, multiple paintings, and works on paper. After a period of building momentum, each piece now is created in response to a specific month.

The production has since taken on a contemplative rhythm, marking time through close attention to natural life cycles and the practice of artistic documentation. In the years that followed, my observations of planetary change began to shape this experience. I have come to see the labour of art-making as part of a broader public awareness that connects agricultural traditions with the seasonal patterns studied in phenology.

Inscribed by a sense of place and craft, my interests are frequently found in this animated engagement with time, where meaning can surface through the subtle turns of unconscious collective memory.