Marianne Enhorning

For many, the path to being a working artist is clear; liked art in high school, four years in art school and then years of refining and exploring. For others, it is a path with more twists and turns. I grew up in Sweden playing by the ocean, picking mushrooms and flowers in the forest. When I was eleven, we moved to Canada. After high school, I thought about physics, medicine like my wonderful father, but ended up in architecture. Between projects, I went on ski trips, canoe trips, cycled France and worked as a kayak guide. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was the art of buildings that I loved, not the building of buildings. My grandmother was a painter. My whole life I have been surrounded by her art. My parents met because of a painting. I don’t understand why I didn’t see it sooner. I’m an artist. I have always been an artist!

I am drawn to the inner life of women. Their bonds, their labour, their strength and indomitable grace. I am drawn to the splendour of nature. The play of light on the water, the shadows and beams of light coming through the trees. Our humanness seems so small against its grandeur. I am drawn to community. A shared meal, a belly laugh with good friends, long conversations in the dying light of the evening. I am drawn to paint it all. With paint, charcoal, pastels, modelling paste. With brushes, hands, fingers, I release my thoughts and paint.