Roly Fenwick: Walking - Pandemic Newspaper Watercolour Renditions

"The mask symbolizes a sense of danger or mystery and yet a sense of security in wearing it; a mask of safety and frustraction (like a kiss through a veil). 

It can look threatening or enticing. It can be a fashion statement. The wearing of it intensifies eye expression and conversely has made visual dependence on mouth expressions for communication temporarily obsolete. "

 - Roly Fenwick, April 2021

Roly Fenwick was born in 1932 in Owen Sound, ON.  He studied under Alex Colville and Lawren P. Harris at Mount Allison University in Sackville, NB between 1950-1953 along with fellow students Christopher and Mary Pratt.  In 1956 he moved to Toronto where he was the Art Director for Simpson’s/Sears catalogue.

Roly Fenwick is well known for his lush oil paintings that are inspired by the landscape of the Bruce Peninsula, which Fenwick refers to as his “ancestral bloodroots”.  Fenwick explains that his “interest is not in scenery but in probing to reveal the forces beneath the veneer”.  His paintings thoroughly reflect this interest in revealing the sources of nature and inner spirit of the Canadian landscape.