Christina Sie-Merritt is a Manitoba-based painter creating from the edge of the Boreal Forest in Manitoba, Canada
Her work explores the intimate relationship between human experience and the living rhythms of the earth - the seasons, cycles and movements we experience both around us and within us
Movement is a grounding part of Christina’s process. She often begins by drawing with both hands at once, allowing the body to move before the mind begins to direct. These drawings are not necessarily studies or plans for the paintings that follow. Rather, they create an opening, a way of bringing forward something that is already moving within and wants to come through
From these gestures, paintings emerge through an intuitive relationship with colour, form, line and material. Sometimes the finished work bears little resemblance to its beginning. What matters is the movement between the two: listening, responding, and allowing the work to reveal itself
Living at the edge of the Boreal Forest, Christina is continually influenced by the changing light, weather and rhythms of the landscape around her. Her current work is increasingly interested in the space where outer landscape and inner experience meet and in how the places we inhabit become woven into our sense of belonging
Her practice is an ongoing invitation to slow down, pay attention, and remember our relationship with the living world and with ourselves
