I think of this painting as a place where two worlds meet. The deep burgundy ground gives the painting a sense of weight, while the lighter, brighter colours seem to rise from it, much like city lights twinkling against the darkness.
It makes me think about our place in the city now, in Montreal. After spending so much time surrounded by the landscape and forest at home, there is something quite different about looking upward at a city at night. The darkness is punctuated by windows, streetlights and the glow of buildings. And then there is the bright light atop one of Montreal’s tallest buildings, sweeping endlessly across the night sky in a spiral so that airplanes can find their way.
There is something grounding in knowing that we can belong to more than one landscape. The city has its own patterns, rhythms and marks—and this painting is my way of finding a place within them.
