60” x 30” Oil 2024

Like the practice of Claud Monet, who repeatedly painted the hay fields of France,  I respond to the subject of Canmore’s Policeman’s Creek.  Since college I have painted the compositions of this creek behind my house, wether I wield india-ink, charcoal, or sit out plein~air with my oils in winter, summer or fall, I paint this place.

Policeman’s Creek is an icon of my career.  As a painter taught in Italia as well as along side the Algonquin school as a child, graduate of NSCAD, now established in the Rockies, this creek ties together my work as a whole.  I showcase colour, local and interpreted, I play with mark-making, I push my medium of paint until the product is truly a Chrissy Nickerson.  “I paint like me.” This Spring, I saw the aurora borealis for the first time over Lac Des Arcs just after midnight.  I could not believe my eyes.  An Arc Angle reached down over us from across the valley.  It’s tendrils of Viridian, Alizarin, turquoise and phthalo streaked down in star dust from heaven.  A celebration of paint, My Paint. My Creek. My Health, My Choices, A true expression of the title: (paint) CN Policeman’s Creek paintings, to stand strong as a beacon of my individuality and of environmental stewardship.