ARTIST PROFILE
The Moody Bay You can call them waterscapes, feelingscapes, thoughtscapes or abstracts, but Jeremy Down’s series of paintings of Georgian Bay will challenge your perceptions of the Sixth Great Lake
Truth Truce.
words :: Ned Morgan // photos :: Kristin Schnelten
After talking to Jeremy Down I think about the landscape—in particular the waterscape—differently. The painter has based a recent series of watercolours on local freshwater colossus Georgian Bay. “Water’s like magic,” he says. “You can’t really paint it—it just keeps moving around.” For me this statement is a key to understanding Down’s series. His are not the sort of landscape paintings that recreate or strictly represent the usual elements. Instead they use pattern, form and unusual colour palettes to suggest mood, movement and natural cycles. Down isn’t showing us pictures of water—he is painting ideas about its form and meaning. He explains: “For me, each mood has visual content. I don’t need reference photos. [The paintings] come from an experiential point, not a representational one. So even though I say they’re inspired by the bay, I’m not painting a picture of the water.” ML sat down with Jeremy in his bright, spartan studio in a converted garage beside his home in Meaford, just after a November blizzard. 50