Many of these tales are being doled out in tiny pixels, briefly sped past our eyes on slick, glossy screens. In the end, it is our human experiences on this planet that speak to others. Cory paints an iceberg from the bow of a freighter canoe off the coast of Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada. Even to the extent of lugging film equipment on my journeys to create television documentaries in order to share these regions with an even wider audience. Whether it’s remote and wild places that most people will never see, or drawing from nature’s more subtle details around my studio, this process has led to a greater desire and hope to see my work foster a greater appetite to care for our changing environment. After all, my passions require me to study the world around me, to seek out beauty and to struggle with the challenge of its portrayal daily. Jackson, who along with the Ontario Society of Artists and other concerned citizens, lobbied for the protection of the unique Killarney landscape, which eventually became Killarney Provincial Park in 1964.Īs a landscape painter, this desire to reach out beyond the canvas has been a natural progression. In Canada, there’s the Group of Seven artist A.Y. landscape inspired Congress to establish Yellowstone, North America’s first national park. In 1872, Thomas Moran’s artwork depicting the Western U.S. One doesn’t have to look far for examples in art history.
In my search for authenticity and meaning in my work, I’ve come to realize that the solitary and seemingly self-serving practice of art-making can indeed have a broader impact. Getting personal: Cory paint an iceberg “plein air” for a folding canoe. But rising above all of these are the encounters with the environment itself, a sublime combination of glaciers, icebergs, mountains, polar deserts, endless tundra, untouched rivers, ephemeral flora, often under the glow of an endless 24 hours of daylight. These journeys have filled my world with encounters of every kind, from Arctic Wolves surrounding my tent, being watched by Polar Bears, traveling with the North’s indigenous Inuit peoples, and even crossing paths with explorers of the past, who have left their marks on the land, including a gravesite from 171 years ago. VIDEO: The Story, Cory Trépanier’s Into the Arctic Traveling Museum Exhibition also available here.įour extensive expeditions over the last decade have taken me and my easel into some of the most remote landscapes at the apex of North America, one of the last untamed regions on our planet. Not just the sense of awe, but the overwhelming sense of humility, brought on from the realization of how tiny I am in these expansive panoramas. Traveling the land in this intimate way prepares me to experience nature’s wonder more fully. These journeys, where day-to-day living for a month or more at a time is simplified to the basics of hiking boots, food and a tent, strip away the layers of civilization that accumulate in the studio. Capturing these rare views on canvas while experiencing the land firsthand is integral to conveying the power of nature though my art.
While I have found inspiration in much less dramatic places, the 1.5 million square kilometres of raw wilderness across Canada ’s Arctic has taken the concept of a “natural high” to a new and deeper level. © Cory Trépanier.Īs a landscape painter, this is the place, both physically and metaphysically, that I am searching for on an expedition: a natural environment that engulfs me in an overpowering sense of awe. Cory enters Sam Ford Fiord by 24 freighter canoe with Inuit guides on Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada.
I was entering Sam Ford Fiord, and I was speechless… again. Craning my neck, I saw a massive glacier draping over the upper edge of the wall, gushing fresh water runoff back down the rock face to eventually join the ocean below. A solid sheer wall of granite rose from the depths of the ocean and past the waterline for a kilometre toward the sky, dwarfing the berg and, unbelievably, making it seem like a spec on the water.
The iridescent whites and blues of the ice were spectacular, but looking beyond, my jaw dropped further. I was in Canada’s far north, with Inuit guides Sam and Jayko at the helm, as we slammed through whitecaps in a 24 foot cedar freighter canoe along the north coast of Baffin Island, Nunavut. Gripping the gunnel, I wiped the salt water spray from my eyes as a massive iceberg came into focus.
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