Her artwork is inspired by the beautiful North landscape. Within Jessica McVicker’s paintings, there is a constant story which she is trying to tell and McVicker has been painting masterpieces in Yellowknife for the last ten years which helps with her healing.
“I was born in the lush mountain trees of British Columbia. I often dream about living amongst those big trees,” McVicker said. “The mountains are something I intrinsically miss, but because of them, I can more thoroughly appreciate or understand the vast sky, desolate and subtle landscape of the Northwest Territories.”
McVicker says she did not have a happy childhood and she has spent most of her adulthood working through the unhappiness of growing up with the absence of love and kindness.
“Artwork guides and fosters my process of healing and I need to do it for my own well-being,” McVicker said. “Making artwork for me is akin to finding peace and bringing peace to others.”
McVicker says her work celebrates a grand escape from a past that continues to haunt.
“With art, I am learning to forgive, love and play,” McVicker said. “I am searching for the important places inside myself, to rewrite what I cannot rewrite, to give my inner child sanctuary and a treasured existence.”
McVicker uses the landscape of the North to inspire hope as she searches for beauty in every day with every brushstroke.
“In my surrealism, I am puzzling over the past to find a better future,” McVicker said. “Darkness, as all northerners know, can be deep, black and last for too long, but like all things, it is transitory and soon summer will return with its midnight sun.”
McVicker has been painting in Yellowknife for the last ten years and admits that she really didn’t paint landscapes until she ventured North of 60.
“I love painting landscapes actually, but I didn’t do landscapes till I came up here,” McVicker said. ” The landscape of the North has really inspired me.”
Everything McVicker paints while in the North is Northen related.
“Within my paintings, I am constantly telling a story, a story about healing, forgiveness and all the places in-between,” McVicker said.
With each flick of the paintbrush, McVicker is bringing a bit of healing to her our mind and closure to a world she left behind.
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