Artist's Statement

......the quality of light on a windowsill, the curve of a particular coastline, the haphazard arrangement of tools, lunch, and papers on a table: It's the objects, the space, the people, and the light in my immediate surroundings that have always interested me most . On the strength of that interest and feeling alone, transformed by my hand and my eye, I believe I am able to transcend my personal associations to speak, in pastel, to others.

My pastels are also about the love of making them. In pastel, as in drawing, it is difficult and often impossible to hide the evidence of the process---of the marks that came before. This is what makes drawing feel so fresh and personal---it's like a conversation rather than a finished, edited composition. In all the work I do----drawing, monotype, pastel, even oil painting------I am conscious of, and often I purposely accentuate that evidence of the process, that search. Lines in my images which seem to be independent, or gratuitous, are really describing something. They have meaning. The one quality that ties all my work together is the use of line. All are a response to direct observation, no matter where they go or how independent they look. Every line refers to something.

...And the fact that these paintings depict a studio space adds to the feeling they impart of immediacy and of the process. These drawings are about picking up a pastel and making a drawing now of what's right in front of me because it's there-------and besides, it's beautiful!

David Gibson, Montréal, 2005