With Nature as her guru and her subject, she does it extremely well. Many artists collect rocks. Aili’s paintings of beach pebbles and river stones celebrate them. The challenge of capturing the ceaseless motion of water or clouds on a still canvas is endlessly fascinating to her. She experiments with pointillism techniques to portray the intricacies of colour and texture with which Nature imbues her inert minerals and her quicksilver water. Her acrylic and pastel series have titles like “Afternoon Light at the River” and “Racing Clouds”.

Aili Kurtis has lived an interesting life. She has traveled extensively, married several times, raised a daughter (singer-songwriter Alana Kurtis), pursued various flavours of organized religion, invented spiritual celebrations with ecofeminist friends, experimented with mind-altering substances, and been ordered out of the Supreme Court of Canada by Chief Justice Bora Laskin (she was a courtroom illustrator, and her pastels spilled out onto the floor during the proceedings). She was Creative Director of Corel Corporation and Art Director of CJOH TV. Along the way, she studied art at the Ontario College of Art (Toronto) and the University of Quebec (Montreal), where she received a BA in Art Education. She was a high school art teacher and she taught drawing, portraiture and landscape painting for ten years at the Ottawa School of Art.

Amidst all this remarkable adventure and energy, the constants remain her daughter, her reverence for Nature, and her passion for portraying “the fragility and transience of Nature by focusing on shifting perceptions of reality.” Since 2001 she has been a fulltime exhibiting artist, working in an idyllic setting on the balcony of her spectacular studio overlooking the waters of island-studded Pike Lake midway between Perth and Westport.

Celebrating the Sublime

Raised in Yellowknife, NWT, Kurtis loves to paint the shadows and reflections of the natural environment. Her northern homeland taught her appreciation and respect for both the overwhelming power and the rare and delicate beauty of Nature. Her travels to Mexico, Central and South America, China, India, Nepal, Tibet, Southeast Asia and Australia have influenced her art and her philosophy, but her scenic paintings focus on the patterns and rhythms of the Canadian landscape.

Aili is always searching for “the abstract within the real.” She describes her paintings as “a way of seeing, a doubleness of vision: I take great pleasure in constructing an object as a convincing representational illusion, while simultaneously generating the abstraction that colour, dot and pattern can bring.” In 2004 one of her representational pieces, “Killarney Dusk”, appeared in the How to Paint Seascapes book published by The International Artist Magazine. Kayaking on Georgian Bay, she was “awestruck by the beauty of the evening light reflected on the water.” The painting is a magnificent testament to her spiritual relationship with Nature.

Last year her first major excursion into abstract painting netted her third prize and an honorable mention in the Annual Pastel 100 Competition. Over 4,000 artists participate in this prestigious international competition, and the April 2006 edition of the Pastel Journal carried a full-page article on Kurtis and her art. Just as her representational pieces shimmer with a sense of abstraction, her abstract works suggest a hint of representation. Pastel Artists Canada awarded the title “Master Pastellist” to Aili in 2004.

On her comprehensive and compelling website Kurtis has published a number of philosophical articles about the definition and value of art. In her “Artist’s Statement” she explains her penchant for exploring abstraction in Nature. “The fleeting nature of shadows and reflections, combined with what we take to be solidly real, create patterns and imagery that remind us, in a subtle way, of the impermanent and translucent qualities of life.”

Kurtis Was Here

Another artist, author William Faulkner, said “The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life… This is the artist’s way of scribbling ‘Kilroy was here’ on the wall of the final and irrevocable oblivion through which he must someday pass.”

Kurtis’ “scribblings” are well worth your attention. In July her works will be featured in the new “Gallery Perth” at the Perth Picture Framing Gallery. You are invited to the Grand Opening from 2–5PM on Saturday, July 15 to celebrate this event and to meet Aili and other area artists. On August 26 and 27 she is participating in the Rideau Valley Art Festival in Westport. In October she is participating in the Cube Gallery’s “Lumber” show at 7 Hamilton Ave. N. near the Parkdale Market in Ottawa. From November 3–26 Aili is featured in a solo show at Ottawa’s Snapdragon Gallery at 791 Bank St.; she will be giving a talk during the Opening and Reception from 6–8PM on Friday, November 3. This is another Artist Trading Card that certainly belongs in your collection.