A CREATIVE FORCE
Artist going strong at 91
“I don’t do it for people. I just do it for myself,” 91-year-old painter Dorothy Knowles said.
“I just want top our that out on the canvas: My love for the landscape, my love for the trees and the sky and the wonderful radiance of the skies.”
Born in Unity, Knowles is one of the most renowned painters to come out of the province, most well-known for her beautiful landscape paintings.
She has a little more experience than most artists, as well — at 91 years old, Knowles said she’s been painting for more than 70 years. And she’s still making artwork as a nonagenarian.
“I can’t paint large paintings as easily as I used to, so I’ve been working on smaller things,” Knowles said with a chuckle. “You adapt to your necessities.”
Knowles got her start as a painter at an Emma Lake art workshop, where she was instructed by Saskatoon artist Reta Cowley. When the whole family was younger, Knowles said they would get in the van and go on trips around Saskatchewan and neighbouring provinces. She joked that the biggest challenge was trying not to get stuck in the mud driving on sideroads in a rainstorm.
A selection of Knowles’ work is currently on display at Remai Modern art gallery along the riverbank in Saskatoon. She is one of three artists from the Prairies featured in the exhibit III: Heavy shield, Knowles, Cameron-weir. The other two artists, Faye Heavy shield and Elaine Cameron-weir, have more modern and sculpture-like art pieces on display alongside Knowles’ landscapes.
Exhibit curator Rose Bouthillier said the show is not about the mediums of the artwork being brought together, but rather the binding theme.
“This show is really about experience,” Bouthillier said. “Some exhibitions are about thought or history, but this show is about experience.”
Bouthillier said the artists all deal with the concept of time in their own way. Heavy shield’s single piece in the exhibit, called wave, consists of a spiralling rope laid out on the floor that Bouthillier said refers to cyclical time. She also said Cameron-weir’s work, which includes glasses made from sculpted ancient moldovite, makes reference to how we look at the past.
And Knowles’ paintings include elements of transition through the seasons or changing landscapes, Bouthillier said.
There’s another element of time evident amongst the three featured artists, and that’s their own time. The exhibit covers three different generations of artists in Canada: Cameron-weir is in her 30s, Heavy shield is in her 60s, and Knowles is over 90.
About half of Knowles’ pieces in the exhibit were painted before either of the other two artists were born.
“It’s definitely an interesting challenge, because Dorothy has had a very illustrious career,” Bouthillier said. “One of the challenges is, what do you focus on or reveal that hasn’t been looked at before?”
For Bouthillier, that meant trying to bring out a “darker” side of Knowles and her work, drawing on pieces that are less open and bright than some of her more renowned paintings.
At age 91, Knowles still says quite matter-of-factly that she “looks at what (she’s) looking at” and paints it. But the thought process has changed somewhat over the years, she noted.
“Maybe you hear somebody you knew has died, and you can think, ‘Should I paint some lilies, or should I paint the moon shining on the water with some dark trees?’ ”Knowles said.
“Your feelings are different, so you look for different things.”
The exhibition at the Remai Modern runs until Jan. 20.
Maybe you hear somebody you knew has died, and you can think, ‘Should I paint some lilies, or should I paint the moon shining on the water?’