New Series: Mountain Studies - New Paintings by M.L.Holton

I've been thinking a lot about mountains lately, as a natural 'form': how they tower above us, yet draw their vitality from below (like volcanoes, or mountain ridges that are the result of massive shifting geo-plates).

Mountain Study - HOPE - by M.L.Holton / acrylic on board / FOR SALE

Humans engage with these 'forms' in a variety of different emotional ways, either with veneration (appealing to hope and lofty sentiments of aspiring majesty etc,) or with fear (of a greater unknown, an object forbidding and insurmountable, of threatening power etc.)

I want and need to explore this further ...

I'll be drawing on my past experiences of time spent in & around the 'new' mountains of British Columbia and Alberta, first as a teen and then as an older woman. And I'll be considering too the 'older' mountains of Quebec & Ontario, those old rollers who lack the sharp edges of the West. I grow up and around the ancient strata of the Niagara Escarpment of Ontario ...

Mountains BECKON ... they draw us to them.

Mountain Study - Prospecting - by M.L.Holton / acrylic on board - FOR SALE

My preferred tool for this exploration is a trowel, or painter's spatula - with a very sharp flat edge to 'carve' and 'excavate'  paint. Inherent is this idea is the notion of 'prospecting' - or hunting - for minerals, gold, or food and water - hunting for nourishment - literal and metaphysical ...

(If interested in the above works, let me know.
For now, I'm not framing anything.)

UPDATE, March 27th. 
Have finished the triptych - with a gold leaf 'vein' running through all 3 boards.
I will be framing only the centre board ... 

Triptych - Mountain Core - Acrylic with gold leaf, by M.L.Holton, 2017

Centre panel - Triptych - Mountain Core, by Canadian painter, M.L.Holton