NICOLE BAUBERGER

The horizon draws me to the Yukon. I can almost hear the conversation going on between these dynamic skies and strong wide mountains. That conversation is what I try to paint. For 22 years – since I was 10 – I lived in Peterborough, Ontario. Although I took a couple of valuable courses at the Ontario College of Art, I chose my Peterborough collaborations as my art college. For five years I worked as apprentice and assistant painter to David Bierk – an intensive education in oil paint, methods and materials, as well as art history and contemporary art practices. Late at night in the BierkArt Studio I began my first experiments with encaustic, using the hotplate we used to make the rabbit skin glue. Since leaving BierkArt in the spring of 1999 I have pursued my own artistic visions. I created a show of paintings and drawings in installation, which stages a dialogue with Baroque painter Artemesia Gentileschi, and toured it across Canada. After three summers of painting in the Yukon I made it my home. Two winters under my belt now, too.  I’m still painting that dialogue between the land and sky.