Cloud Witness
Artist goes above and beyond for series of paintings now on exhibit
KITCHENER — When Melissa Doherty sought inspiration for a new series of paintings, she was looking upward to see downward.
“When you’re on a plane, you’re able to gaze down,” said the painter. “I’d take photos and gather information.”
What struck her was the difference in perspective, particularly in terms of forests that on the ground seem endless, but from the air are shown for exactly what they are, simply a few remaining pockets of nature.
“I had relatives who lived in a house in a woodlot,” she said. “I would visit them and this forest seemed endless, it went on and on.”
Seeing that same expansive woodlot from the air revealed an ugly truth: the forest was surrounded by encroaching human development. These pockets in Southwestern Ontario visible from the air, are examples of depleting nature.
“It’s how it’s being manipulated,” said the artist who holds a bachelor of fine arts degree from the University of Waterloo. Her work is part of private and public collections in Canada, the U.S. and Great Britain.
The unique perspective led to searching for satellite images posted on Google Earth and those images became her final inspiration for this new series of paintings appropriately titled “Cloud Witness.”
The exhibit opened at Kitchener’s newest gallery space, Open Sesame on April 27 and runs until June 10, with an artist talk on June 6.
Open Sesame, less than two years old, is a quirky place full of interesting ideas. The gallery/ bookstore/kitchen gadget supplier is the brainchild of Lauren Weinberg who plans on making the space a welcome venue for local writers and artists like Doherty. In fact, Open Sesame is the perfect location for “Cloud Witness” with its bright interior surrounded by floor to ceiling windows overlooking Kitchener City Hall’s courtyard and pool.
Doherty’s serene, almost mystical paintings, are the artist’s interpretation of multiple screen shots taken of woodlots from the air, dominated by the green of the trees with dark water bodies at the centre and floating over top, clouds drift like apparitions. There are no vestiges of human activity, no roads, no fences or houses, just forest, water and clouds.
“These are showing a carpet of landscape,” she said. “It could be northern Ontario, northern U.S. or Brazil. I looked for trees, bodies of water.”
The clouds play a vital role in the works, giving the perspective of looking down from the heavens.
“They’re almost like little characters,” she said of the clouds. “A couple of people have commented it’s like a womb, an ultrasound (image) and the clouds are human-like.”
Doherty speaks of the earth representing the body in her paintings, clouds the light and the images are where these two elements come together. It’s all very metaphorical, a comment on human interference with the earth yet the paintings are also detailed, the green of the trees’ canopy resembling tufts of fur.
“You can view the heavens in there,” she said.