Maya Chartier | Weather Days
Maya Chartier
Weather Days
FOCUS GALLERY
January 5 - 27, 2024
Opening Reception: January 12, 5-7pm
‘Weather Days’ is a collection of work I created during a fieldwork trip to study ringed seals and their environment near Ulukhaktok NWT, in August of 2023.
When the winds were too strong to go out by boat and set nets to catch live seals, we were forced to stay at camp. I kept busy with my oil paints to try to capture the beauty of the landscapes around me. Oil paint is a relatively new medium to me, and I was thrilled to challenge myself and get to explore this type of paint that allows me to work outside en plein air.
I let myself experiment with colours and carefully chose the scenes that I wanted to remember the most about this place that I connected with for a couple of weeks. I am passionate about northern plants and this camping trip was a wonderful opportunity for me to observe many of them. I took photographs of all the arctic plants that I could find and painted illustrations of my favourite ones with watercolours.
While my landscape paintings are a little bit more abstract and colourful, my illustrations aim to picture every detail of those tiny arctic plants that are well-equipped to survive in a cold and windy environment.
Not many people get to see this area with their own eyes, and I hope my work gives people an idea of how beautiful the Arctic is, particularly the area around Safety Channel on Victoria Island. My intentions are to celebrate the beauty of northern ecosystems and to share a glimpse of what the life of a scientist studying wildlife and working outside looks like in the Arctic. I feel very privileged to visit and work in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region.
MAYA CHARTIER
Maya Chartier (Akassiyah) is a francophone artist who spends her time between Whitehorse and Haines Junction, Yukon, Canada. Besides her artistic projects, she works as a wildlife technician in the Arctic. Science is the main source of inspiration for her art practice – medicinal and rare plants, northern wildlife, celestial bodies, forest and marine ecosystems are the main subjects of her paintings. Her work expresses her spiritual relationship with nature and illustrates the connection between living beings, using mainly watercolors, inks and gouache. When she is not working in her studio, she is in the mountains, skiing or hiking with her dog Oslo.
Past Exhibitions
