Ally McIntyre - Warm At Last

When reflecting on her new body of work, McIntyre mused that it “came at a time when I was processing a loss: Loss of loved ones, loss of routine, loss of structure. The usual things we all experience at one point or another. In reaction, I went out into nature. I needed to encounter wildlife, prairie grass, foothills, to come to terms with my place in this life. These things influenced the show ‘Warm At Last’. I painted a portrait of the rural Alberta landscape and some of the life that hangs out there. I worked my way through each painting, sometimes dancing and sometimes crying as my grief settled. My subjects have holes in them, a sense of past and passage; becoming and disintegrating from nothing. The cruel and mysterious nature of time staring me back in the eye.” Animals have featured in McIntyre’s paintings since the beginning of her career and this exhibition continues with a deeper exploration of wildlife, this time taking the foreground and behaving as a vehicle for processing the artist’s emotions through her practice. Though often large-scale, the paintings evoke an intimacy; glimpses of lucidity amidst masked figures and snarling wolves which stare out of the canvas. In developing early ideas from 2014, the paintings merge abstract backgrounds and figuration, with some areas in clarifying detail, and others sketchy, in flux, the dynamic movement is captivating, embellished further by her confident and memorable use of mark making.