An Intervention into Canadian Art History: An Homage to Emily Carr

Around 2016, I began placing myself within landscapes inspired by Lawren Harris. This was not simply an aesthetic decision. It was a deliberate act, a way of inserting myself into the canon of Canadian art. As a contemporary Canadian female artist, I wanted to open a conversation about where my work belongs and how that canon might expand.

I have long been drawn to Harris’s stylized landscapes, their dreamlike palettes, their quiet blues, and their sense of stillness. By borrowing from his visual language and positioning myself at the centre of the composition, I was, in some ways, calling out to be seen. Not quietly, but with intention.

Over time, my presence in these works shifted. Often, I appear with my back to the viewer, inviting them to stand with me rather than look at me. Together, we enter the landscape. Together, we consider it.

I have come to call this body of work Interventions. In these paintings, I exist as both observer and participant, stepping into the historical narrative while extending it. These works move beyond homage. They engage in dialogue with the past and carry it forward into the present. The landscape remains constant, but the voice within it evolves.

Homage to Emily Carr: The Red We Carry

In this most recent painting, I turn to the work of Emily Carr. Where Harris evokes the clarity of northern light and mountainous form, Carr’s work is deeply rooted in the west coast, with dense forests, saturated greens, and a sense of immersion within the land itself. The palette shifts from restraint to richness, from atmosphere to intensity.

Inspired by Carr’s Indian Church (Church at Yuquot Village) the familiar white chapel reappears, but no longer in isolation. It is partially obscured, interrupted by a contemporary figure caught mid-gesture, pulling a vivid red garment over their head. The action feels intimate, almost ritualistic, as though the figure is stepping into an identity or shedding one.

Red moves through the canvas like a pulse, insistent, alive, impossible to ignore. It cuts against the dense, Carr-like forest, where deep greens press inward, holding both shelter and tension. The church, once a singular presence, becomes fragmented and repeated, its crosses emerging through the foliage like quiet witnesses.

A tension settles into the work, between past and present, visibility and concealment, identity and imposed narrative. The figure’s face is hidden, resisting easy recognition. What remains is gesture and colour, a language that asks more than it explains.

This is not only a homage. It is a re-entry, a return to a landscape once painted by Carr, now inhabited by a contemporary body and voice. What emerges is a layered reflection on Canada itself, how histories persist, how identities are constructed and reconstructed, and how the land continues to hold these stories, quietly and without end.