Planet Earth.

As an artist, I am inspired by the element of perspective within my paintings. I approached my earlier series “Sea Change” from a dramatic vantage point. The infusion of colour and texture expressed a wealth of emotions projected onto a landscape. While nature was the departure point, the series Sea Change (coined by Shakespeare in The Tempest) explored romantic illusions in life.

In the last couple of years, I have become more of a realist. I’ve seen great changes politically, economically and socially within our world. On an environmental level, we are seeing the impact of our civilization. There is a transition happening on every level of our society. It is because of this that I am compelled to paint my new series, Planet Earth.

Norah Borden

In 2010, my friend Norah Borden started to see the world in a different way - literally.

Norah is an accomplished artist, who, until that point in time, had been painting interpretive, ethereal landscapes and seascapes. But in 2010, she saw a world in a global crisis, a world that was being shaped and changed by political and economic forces that sharply emphasized the divisions between countries and cultures.  Norah's response to these changes was to begin seeing our planet from a higher perspective, looking at the world as an interconnected whole that ignores the lines between countries and ideologies.

Photographs don't do justice to Norah's work - the art is incredibly textural and conceptually developed, and the large canvases that she has chosen for Planet Earth emphasize the detail and artistry that has gone into the creation of her work.  The swirling colours combine with the thick layering of medium to create a perfect artistic interpretation of our world as seen from orbit, while at the same time evoking a microscopic view.

If you'd like to get a good look at Norah's art in person, her work is currently on display at Telus Science World here in Vancouver.  She's doing a show in cooperation with Urthecast, a Vancouver-based company that provides access to data from high definition cameras mounted on the International Space Station.  If you get a chance, I strongly recommend that you take a look at her show - everyone should have an opportunity to see the world the way that Norah does.

http://www.ourplanetearth.ca/ - on display until September 14th, 2015.

- Sid

*Norah, who is a tiny perfect blonde person, works on her large canvases in an equally tiny perfect studio space - I've never seen her painting, but I imagine it as the artistic equivalent of building a ship in a bottle.