The Creative Code WRITTEN BY KELLY PUTTER | FEATURING ARTIST BRIAR EMOND
M
essy, tactile finger painting with wee ones may have informed the next career step of Burlington artist Briar Emond, but her semi-abstract renderings of trees, water and other natural scenes are the result of a strong left-right brain balance. “I never thought about painting before I was 40,” says the 55-year-old mother of two teens. “I was finger painting with my kids one day and realized how special it was. I’m not a person who has hobbies. I never painted when the kids painted. But when I did, I figured out that play is not useless.” What she learned about painting is how to explore ideas and emotions and that what’s important in the creative process is not perfection but the feelings called to mind by a work of art. “What’s great about art is how it’s interpreted,” she says. “I love if people see things in my work that I didn't intend. That tells me about the observer. I create space on a canvas for people that allows them to think and find different things on different days. I’m not interested in doing things that have been done; I don’t want to be influenced by other people’s work.”
106 | January • February 2024
Her lead-up to the art world could be described as circuitous. Born and raised in Mississauga, Emond earned a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Guelph University. She worked as an account manager in banking for eight years before doing a complete about-face, which eventually immersed her into the world of film and television production. But by her midthirties, the prospect of motherhood beckoned so she decided to make raising her children her livelihood. Today, Emond works from a studio in her Burlington basement, where her unusual painting technique sees her pouring acrylic paint onto typically large canvasses that are laid out horizontally on the floor. Once she gets an image she likes, her canvasses are placed vertically for her to fine-tune. Emond liquefies her paint with water, often using a spray bottle so she can play with the consistencies of her paints. She sprays water where she wants the paint to go and the result is often exploratory though not completely out of left field. “I work with the paint to explore repetitive patterns that occur naturally in nature,” she says. “I love to see the paint lead the way in regards to creating leaves or water tributaries -- the natural patterns we see in nature. Then I see what the paint does and then I play with the paint. Usually, I’ll see a leaf in it or a lot of trees, a flower or a body of water. I let the paint lead the way. It’s way more interesting that way.”
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