"Drifted Silence"

24 x 24, acrylic on canvas

This piece came out of a trip to Tulabi Falls in Nopiming Provincial Park — one of those places in Manitoba where the land still feels untouched, and the quiet has weight to it.

I was drawn to a small rock island holding onto a stand of wind-bent pines, standing alone against the water. In the distance, the lake was just beginning to surrender to the cold — ice and snow forming slowly along the surface, the first signs of a season taking hold. Behind it all, a fog rolled in, thick and grey, swallowing the horizon until sky and water almost became the same thing.

I wanted the painting to hold that in-between moment — not quite winter, not quite anything else. Just stillness. The trees, weathered and leaning, are the only thing standing firm against it, their reflection anchoring them to water that's starting to go quiet and hard.

Drifted Silence is my attempt to capture that pause — the moment right before a place goes fully still for the winter, when the cold is arriving but hasn't yet taken over.