Carol Lynn Gilchrist: The Life of a River: Maps and Landscapes

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Carol Lynn Gilchrist, "The Valley Glows," 2016

watercolour

First Friday Red Deer Opening: December 1 from 6:00 to 8:00 pm. Carol Lynn will be in attendance. Refreshments will be served. 

Explore the Red Deer River in all its glory with local artist, Carol Lynn Gilchrist.

Following the Red Deer River from its headwaters near Skoki Mountain to its ending where it joins the South Saskatchewan River near Empress, local artist Carol Lynn Gilchrist honours the life of the river and the beautiful Alberta settings it travels through.

As a landscape painter and mapmaker, Carol Lynn angles the viewer’s perspective and shifts the idea of the river as landscape to explore the nature of moving water and land formations. Fragile and changing ecosystems are depicted in her cartography. She celebrates this blue serpentine river carving through forests, farmland and crossing grasslands to join another major river at the Alberta-Saskatchewan border. Can you recognize the areas she paints? Come and explore the journey of our Red Deer River with her.

Artist Statement:

I celebrate the river forms from many perspectives; as a curious observer of the natural world, retired community planner, map-maker and a self-taught watercolourist. By quietly observing my surroundings, my art both grounds me and takes me on a journey outside of myself. There is mindfulness to plein air painting that I enjoy. I find comfort in being there at that moment. In this sense, I depict the common scene as a sacred place – capturing the light and spirit of the place. In doing so, I reveal my emotional attachment to the land. My landscape paintings and maps are kindred spirits. They communicate the essence of a place; its geography, the history and its people.