K: Are there any artists who inspire you visually or conceptually? 

C: That also changes a lot! It depends on the day… Maybe I’ll mention some that have stood the test of time for me. It might seem trendy as a painter to say Philip Guston, but there’s a reason! He was working with the Abstract Expressionists in New York in the mid 20th century, but made a kind of gutsy pivot to figuration. Lots of folks thought it to be career suicide at the time, but those figurative works have an energy that’s so unique to him. Its always a treat standing in front of one… Likewise if I’m thinking about surface quality I have to mention Susan Rothenberg. I saw a handful of them in Los Angeles last summer, and she really packs so much love and labour into those scrubby surfaces. Marsden Hartley is someone I’ve been looking at a lot over the past year. He was an American Modernist painter from Maine. He spent a couple summers up in Nova Scotia living and working with a family of fishermen who lived about a half hour away from my relatives. That has been a really interesting narrative to follow. He went through several stages in his painting practice, but I’m most attracted to his works that employ this unapologetic chunky awkwardness… A couple works in the exhibition pull from his work. I do that sometimes… I’m interested in the recycling of motifs. More recently, artists who I’ve been looking at would be Brenda Draney, who is a contemporary Cree painter. I’ve never seen someone use blank or negative space the way she does. The painted marks and wide open blank areas feel equally charged and important. Sometimes I find myself looking at artists who maybe I initially don’t really like or am skeptical of. For example Richard Aldrich or Raoul De Keyser. Its interesting how time has changed my perspective on these artists… I’m not sure I can pinpoint why, but the intrigue is inspiring I guess. 

K: Your work goes through many phases, how do you know when the work has come to an end?

C: I try to avoid formulas as much as I can. Each work presents its own set of challenges and requirements. So in that sense its hard to answer. I think if I pull back, I know a work is done when it has a life of its own. Sometimes that life happens very quickly, other times very slowly. I often find myself chasing surprise in the studio… So a lot of that has to do with failing, rebuilding, reevaluating, listening, and pivoting. I think I get most excited about works which kind of baffle me. They begin with a concrete reference or a source, but end up as something new. Its a kind of work that’s hard to talk about, but has something to do with change, pivoting, and getting to know something. Which I think are great skills in just being a human!