This new work by Sandra Meigs can be accredited to a two-week stint in Banff, a place of boundless wilderness. The snows provide ample water to feed the small streams and rivers; flowing clear enough to see every pummelled pebble. Mating Elk roam, their furry backs dusted with light flakes as they navigate the hoof-groomed trails of their predecessors.

The cold pushes you back inside at every attempt of stepping outside the cabin. It is a sincere solitude. A lovely privacy.

The strength of these portraits; the slowness of their becoming, provides them with a profusion of life. Over the course of the first-day of being here, They began easing themselves in. What was initially a silent gesture of paint, quickly veered into an oil and water dance of compromise. Both Sandra and They navigated each other, requesting certain things and giving others. Sometimes the mark would be in the perfect spot, other times it had to move, in which it would be wiped off in the hopes of getting it right next time.

Emotive quality does not just suddenly manifest, it requires nurturing, and cultivation, which is precisely why these portraits express themselves beyond the exploratory movements of paint. Yes, the gestures and vibrant splotches of colour are playful, but there is indisputable intention; the eyes being the fulcrum of this declaration. Whether they are open wide with curiosity, closed shyly with pleasure, or two black dots, melancholic but sincere, the eyes of these beings solicit them as existing in the same world we do.

The conventions of portraiture are finely sifted through. Using unlikely chromas, and distorted scale, the portraits cross over into the same wildness that they were brought from.

The cut out birch panels are holders of these penetrating personalities. Their edges provide a boundary between what is seen and unseen. There is no aura, only the real. Their colours bleed and saturate the pedestals; gently resting into a body.

The Beings are doe-like, curious and conscientious. They are of the evergreens. They are of layering, and thickness. They are fecund, endlessly gestating. If you ask them they would tell you about the first time they opened their eyes: pale light ran sharp spears through the trees, snow dusted Elk trod on through a maze of mess.