FROM TRINIDAD TO GREY COUNTY

Anna-Maria Dickinson

March 2013

Flesherton artist Anna-Maria Dickinson's two worlds are that of Trinidad and Grey County. Her early life in the Caribbean islands has inspired a series of paintings expressive of their colour, lushness, slow pace and communality. These paintings comment on the closeness of small communities and neighbourhoods in which cooperation and generosity are needed to mitigate the realities of poverty.

Dickinson's Grey County paintings, in contrast, fall within a Canadian landscape tradition in which people are absent or long-gone. Old barns, empty rural roads, quiet ponds and still winter scenes evoke pioneer environments in which one's closest neighbours or community were miles away. Juxtaposed next to the Caribbean paintings, the Grey County work speaks to isolation in the midst of natural beauty.

Anna-Maria Dickinson's paintings have been showcased in galleries, museums and cultural venues in and around Toronto, Canada and in Virginia, US. For the past two years she has participated in a juried exhibition at the Royal Ontario Museum.