When faced with a health crisis, Erin Loree went deep into the Amazon to go deep within herself
Artist Erin Loree can still vividly recall streams of ants charging through where she was staying in the Peruvian jungle. "I remember every once in a while this river of ants would pass through — you'd have to just let it pass through your home and you couldn't really do anything about it," she tells CBC Arts. "Everybody was so comfortable with these ants coming and basically taking over their home for a few hours."
Much of the inspiration for Loree's latest body of paintings — which she began during NSCAD University's Bill and Isabel Pope Painting Residence in Halifax — takes inspiration from her experiences in the Amazon. She did an unstructured artist residency at a center called the Sachaqa Centro De Arte in San Roque de Cumbaza, Peru — an experience that taught her how to let go of the things she couldn't control and open herself up to the unexpected.
It's a mindset that's visibly crept into her paintings. Her works — which were on view in her exhibition 93 Curves at NSCAD's Anna Leonowen's Gallery — feature thick slapped-on-layers of paint, with bright colours from the layers underneath bleeding through. The light seems to bounce off of these paintings, illuminating hidden colours. It's like looking at an oil-filled puddle as the sun hits it, revealing an unexpectedly vibrant palette. The paint has a life of its own, hardening and bulging out at the edges of each layer like candy-coloured scar tissue.
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