Buck in Winter, acrylic & collage, 18x12” 2020 (private collection). Photo reference for the buck deer: Harold Krepps, Sundridge ON

This painting was inspired by the colours of winter. Often the morning sun on my property streams through the many stands of birch trees and lays ribbons of soft pinks, yellows and purples across the snow. And when the sun hits those birch trees themselves they become brilliant white pillars contrasting with the deep blue winter sky.

Other contrasts really appeal to me in this painting: the softness of the pastel colours with all the masculine associations of a buck deer; how such spindly legs can hold up hundreds of pounds of deer; and the antlers that appear so delicate yet they are made for battle and are prized trophies for hunters. Why are contrasts important? In the simplest sense, they create visual and mental interest. They also point to the interplay of opposites in life and this interplay in turn points to the sameness of life: if there can’t be one thing without the other, then everything is necessary.

This is an early version of the painting. In the end I covered the feet of the deer after painstakingly getting them just right. It didn't make sense that the heavy buck would be standing on top of soft snow. I could have left it as it was. It was another pleasing contrast, a clue to the other contrasts in the painting, and the paradox that life contains oppositions yet is not opposed to itself..

Trusting that paradox, I would have left the heavy deer and sharp hooves standing on top of the soft and yielding snow.