Reeds, 1979

Private Collection, Ontario

Dorothy Knowles’ participation in the Emma Lake Workshops in the late 1940s through to the 1960s, greatly influenced and encouraged her interest in landscape painting. Her paintings capture the richness of the Prairie landscape through exploration of colour and texture. In “Reeds”, Knowles transmits the diverse natural environment of the landscape. Often associated with paintings of expansive flat fields of wheat, Knowles brings a fresh approach to capturing her native landscape. Using a cool colour palette of blues and greens in a slightly thicker application of paint and with a decidedly minimal compositional layout, “Reeds” explores an impressionistic view of a diverse marshy landscape.