The Colour Collective

The Colour Collective is a group of artists overcoming disabilities through their artwork. In this exhibition, the artists use landscape paintings to define and understand their world.

Artists' Statement

As painting instructor for the Colour Collective, I have witnessed how the landscape painting has a unique resonance with each artist that relates to their world and their view of it. Whether their artistic hero is an old master or more contemporary, each artist has studied and worked from a variety of references. Yet, each has found a meaning in the landscape painting that speaks to them as individuals and their relationship to their community. A house in the woods, speaks of home and belonging or boats on a river, of freedom and travel, just as a garden in bloom suggests an inner life of peace and beauty.

It has been said that the Canadian spirit is rooted in the land, in the wild beauty of our country. That our reverence for the works of Emily Carr and the Group of Seven, is born from our attachment to place and nature. For those in our society, who have not historically been included, because of attitudes toward those labelled as “disabled,” that reverence for the landscape painting can have a deeper meaning. For some, the landscape is a symbol of “being separate from” or a yearning for community and inclusion, while for others it brings a memory of deep roots and attachment to their place and time.

Deidre Blackmore