the story behind the art: “rooms with a view”
from this collection
“rooms with a view”
acrylic and oil pastel
on thrifted canvas
“dreams” 6x6 inches / 95 CDN
“seek/find” 10x10 inches / 145 CDN
“kingdom far away” 14x18 inches / 350 CDN
on canvas artboards
rooms 01-03 8x10 inches / 50 CDN ea.
rooms 04-07 7x9 inches / 50 CDN ea.
rooms 08-13 5x7 inches / 35 CDN ea.
a series about finding our way; this was an artist exploration using colours and boxes to understand who we were, who we are today, and who we want to be. past mistakes and imperfections help us grow if we reflect and learn from them.
the colours/boxes act as different rooms [times] from our lives to wander into to view from a present day perspective to perhaps discover ourselves, forgive ourselves, and have an overall greater sense of self.
there is no particular age when this work should to be done——at any point in time we can decide to walk through the rooms [look back] to take something valuable from it for our future selves. there is no limit on how many times we go back——the more times we do it, the greater the self awareness and what we want or need our future rooms to look like.
available; please inquire
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read about this work and the process below
the process for all this took a couple months, but mostly of inactive work.
i got stuck after the earliest layers [image below] and wasn’t sure where to take the visual——so i left it totally alone and worked on other things. i didn’t expect this to take quite so long because the vision was strong from the start… but the work had other plans.
sooner or later, it found its way.
sooner or later, everything finds its way.
sooner or later, we all find our way.
the concept and naming was inspired by the songs “breaktown” and “dream girl” by hanson
to me, “dream girl” came with a new meaning in 2024——20 years after we heard it. it was not about finding anyone else [your dream person, for example]. it was about finding myself… after years of looking so hard. the three canvases take the viewer through three stages based off of what this song means to me:
“dreams” reflects the innocence of the child,
“seek/find” reflects the desperation and emotions of the confused youth, and
“kingdom far away” reflects ourselves in the present [if we’re happy with who we are] or future self [if we’re not].
the title of the series [“rooms with a view”] is a phrase from “breaktown.”
this song, to me, is more or less about finding your passion and being able to live it… and the struggle most of us go through to get there.
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canvas art boards:
i made these to go with the series because after the three canvases i didn’t quite feel “done” with the visual concept; these were just a way to relax and curiously play with colours and oil pastels during the very early part of 2026.
