David Laing Dawson
David Laing Dawson
Canadian,
“Above the field there is a blue
Like no other,
And clouds that come alive
Where the thin horizon beckons.
It is a line some day
We all must cross.”
David Laing Dawson
Canadian
“Above the field there is a blue
Like no other,
And clouds that come alive
Where the thin horizon beckons.
It is a line some day
We all must cross.”
This poem, “Horizon,” was written by David Laing Dawson, a psychiatrist, novelist, playwright, poet and painter who lives in The Okanagan Valley, British Columbia. . He’s been painting for more than 40 years, so when pandemic lockdown struck, he kept on painting — and writing poems.
Landscapes are allowed to have a horizon, that is, the line at which earth and sky seem to meet.
“The horizon exists in nature and in metaphor as beginning and end, and even, now, in particle physics,” Dawson says. “On a canvas it can be a static oppressive deadening horizontal line, dividing the single painting into two barely related images, one atop the other.
“It is always a struggle in the making of a painting, what to do with that horizon: where should it be if it should be at all, how bold and obvious or implied and vague should we make it? In most paintings I find I frequently remove, soften, hide, then replace, then remove again.”
Dawson works in a loosely representational style. He balances nature-made patterns and shapes with the marks and movements made by the brush, allowing both to be seen almost at once.