Trees for Life

Nancy Stevens is a distinguished artist who has been a significant figure on the Maritime art scene for the past five decades. She studied painting with Arthur Lismer and with Alex Colville at Mount Allison University. Later she spent a year in Rome at the Academy of Fine Art.

Nancy is concerned about the effects of global warming and believes that our survival as a species is dependent on the health of our forests. To reflect her concern, she has produced the paintings that she calls Trees for Life. Nancy notes that:

“My home for 25 years was in rural Nova Scotia where from every window I saw trees. I have planted trees, watched them grow and thrive. I have seen trees die and return to the forest floor where seedlings began their life cycle. With broad leaf and needle-bearing species intermingled, I witnessed the effects of climate change.

A single tree’s history is determined by soil conditions, environment, weather events, and climate. In each painting I focused on one species and, inspired by the Art Nouveau movement, used design elements to illustrate each one’s story. The silhouette portrait of the tree is encircled with a broad ring which can be seen as symbolic or decorative. Using a pointillist technique, landscape imagery may be interpreted politically, with colour and pattern as symbols. Ten paintings in the exhibition Trees for Life represent the major tree species in the Acadian Forest, their past glory and unknown future.”