Parklife, 2007

Bonelli Arte Contemporanea, Mantova Galleria Ambrosiana Casa D'Aste, auction, Milan, 3 May 2022, lot 10 Private Collection, Montreal

Katerina Atanassova, 'You are Here: Kim Dorland and the Return to Painting' in Katerina Atanassova, Robert Enright and Jeffrey Spalding, “Kim Dorland”, Vancouver/Berkeley and Kleinburg, Ontario, 2014, page 6 “Into the Woods”, Milan, 2006, unpaginated

Kim Dorland was inspired by artists such as Tom Thomson, Emily Carr, David Milne, and members of the Group of Seven - and their quest for bold, authentic, and expressive visual language. The artist goes so far as to credit the art of these painters with saving him, proclaiming: “Before I found art, I had no sense of the future. I could have ended up in a dead-end job or even jail, not because I was violent but because I was thoughtless. Then I found this. It was all I wanted.” Rather than presenting the land as pristine, pretty and unoccupied, Dorland often depicts a wilderness that is more rugged, or populated by ambiguous figures. “Parklife”, a forest scene executed in layers of spray paint in black, silver and neon pink, embodies this more rugged feel, reminiscent of street art. Dorland has stated, “For me, the woods represent nostalgia, identity and place. More recently I have found myself drawn to the woods because they seem so “now” in terms of our political/social/environmental realities. For me the woods also function as a stand-in for contemporary anxiety and dislocation.”