Watercolour on paper (18x24)
Dale Ford is primarily a painter of oils and watercolours. She originally is from Cornwall, Ontario, but has lived in Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto and Ottawa. She studied graphic design at St. Lawerence college, for a time but left the graphic design program to study Visual Arts at York University. While living in Toronto she took part in several student and group shows, winning numerous competitions along the way.
After graduating from York in Fine Arts, she went to Queens University and then returned to Cornwall to teach visual arts. Since then she has lived in numerous locations in Canada soaking up the majesty of the Canadian landscape.
Along the way she has studied with numerous artists and collaborated with may more. Dal is always dyanamic, always changing like the world we see around us..
Dale has the ability to recognize and incorporate the lessons learned from numerous philosophical schools of artistic creation. The varoius "isms" that have dominated the visual arts have left their mark upon her work. She credits influence to such diverse artists as Michelangelo, Paul Cezanne, Van Gogh, William Blake, Jackson Pollack, Munch, Bacon and a collection of Canadian landscape painters called the Group of Seven. All these influences converge to create a dynamic aspect in her work and the creation there of.
Like the Group of Seven, Dale finds inspiration and national pride in the Canadian landscape. This connection is born out of a sense of awe in the stunning, diverse, often extreme beauty that is Canada. This inspiration extends to the people who call this nation home and their experiences in connection to the land and the price Canadians pay for for living here. It is in reference "price" to this that motivation behind several landscapes, such as the above watercolour of Ex Coelis. Ex Coelis is a group of four mountains in Alberta, Canada that were renamed to honour the SSF (special service force, 1 Can Para). History, sacrifice, beauty, symbolism and strength all within a single landscape.
Along with the exterior world, Dale is inspired by the interior landscape of the subconscious and this more personal relationship to our perceptions of the environment in which we live. This is more obvious in the majority of her watercolours, which are done in a wet on wet, staining style, and an embracement of the chaos created by using this technique.
