Paul Kovanen is a painter and skilled draftsman who wanders the landscape, searching for images that contrast the wilderness with rural and industrial sites. In this series of paintings Kovanen has switched from oil to watercolour. The artist uses the medium to capture light and work with the inherent transparent quality of this pigment and water. Some of the sky studies in particular invoke the beauty and gestural features found in Turner’s series of small watercolours. The abstract nature of the atmosphere changes from moment to moment as does the quick renderings of the brush. A recent canoe trip to Kilarney Park opens the surface to the blending of rock faces with water, sky and foliage. This is where you begin to see the bold drafting and complex structuring of rock cliffs and their reflections in water (see Crooked Lake Rock Wall and Ruth Roy Lake Reflections). These rocks and there mirroring in water emerge from the surface as this artist draws attention to the geological origins of these formations.

A second series of works called Around Home juxtaposes the raw beauties of nature with: rural farm fields, conserved forest land, industrial architectures and historical structures with urban development. The piece titled Field and Sky reveals the landscaping of the farmers field, almost plaid like in stark contrast to the intense shafts of light and contrail that are bursting through from the sky. In Sumac we feel the subtle borderlands of the still beauty we can reach in rural patches of wilderness. One is struck by this artist’s ability to work with the details of structure whether it is the chaotic falling of cedars in the forest (Fallen Cedars) or the crisscrossed supports of an old road bridge (Deer Park Road Bridge). Paul Kovanen goes on to paint the urban lines that cut across and into the tranquility of these natural environments. It is here that we begin to feel the contradictions of the designed intentions of industry. We are drawn into these minimal and monolithic sites as the artist carves them out through such accomplished renderings. As the artist recalls painting Ganaraska Grain, a night scene of a floodlit, truck loading zone beside large grain silos, he states, “ Like a fly drawn to a bulb I was lured to this oasis of light. I worked off the hood of a Chevy Lumina parked on the shoulder of the road using a flashlight to mix my colours.” There is much to learn from these intimate watercolours that layer our experience of the contemporary landscape.