Captured on Canvas
Scenic paintings of Newfoundland by artist Steve Fick

1. Leaving St. John’s Harbour As sailors headed out into the open ocean from the safety of the harbour, looking back at the fading city lights and thinking about family and home, they knew a safe return was never guaranteed. This was not the idea that inspired the painting, but was certainly what the painting left with me when I was done.

2. Squid Jigger Trail Crashing surf. A cool, insistent breeze. Calling birds. Rocks washed bare like the bones of beached whales.

3. Graveyard, Fogo Island I walked above the village of Tilting and found this old graveyard, backlit by the failing light of early dusk. There can be a sense of peacefulness so profound that it transforms grief into melancholy, melancholy into beauty and beauty into a sense of being removed from time.

4. Fogo Grass Everything seemed alive and moving that evening – the waves, the breeze, the clouds, the fields of burnished grass, even the rocks. And yet, there was an incredible stillness.

5. Labrador Dawn When I first saw the Labrador coast, I saw a stark beauty and a felt a solitude that was deeper than almost anything I had experienced.

6. Cape Charles The tentative sun, the restless sea, the calling gulls, the salt smells, the derelict wind and ever-changing light. The buildings, walkways, platforms, wood piles, fishing gear. Being in the village of Cape Charles was like pressing my nose against the glass of a different universe. I could see it all, but could hear no voices. The stage and all the props were set, but there were no actors. The village was a shell, drained of human life — sitting, waiting for nothing. I felt like it was me who was the ghost, wandering through a frozen moment of time, unable to see the living souls.

7. Labrador Hillside Sculpted rocks covered in lichen, swaths of bright red berries, the bright colours of the end-of-season foliage and wildflowers.

8. Near White Bear Bay After two days of cold, wet weather, we awoke in the morning to see the sun breaking through the clouds, casting spotlights on the towering cliffs of the south coast fiords.

9. Ramea Dusk Falling night had spread out a palette of cool, dark blues over the harbour. Just before the sun sank below the western horizon, it broke through a layer of cloud and pierced the scene with gold. The surrounding hills looked as though they had been set on fire.

10. John’s Passing My friend O. John Hawkins was an inspiring landscape painter. When he died two years ago, his wife Celia Godkin, also a very accomplished artist, passed on his collection of acrylic paints to me. I finished this painting, the last in this series, just before we drove to Pickering, Ont., for the internment of his ashes in an old Quaker cemetery. Acrylic is a relatively new medium for me. When I look at this painting, I somehow feel a lot of John’s energy in it, and so I dedicated it to him.

About
Steve Fick: Artistic Statement

Daily Journal
Day 1: St John’s & Salmonier Nature Park
Day 2: Change Islands & Tilting
Day 3: L’Anse aux Meadows & Raleigh
Day 4: Cape Charles & Battle Harbour, Labrador Coast
Day 5: Gros Morne National Park
Day 6: Grand Codroy Valley
Day 7: White Bear Bay & Ramea
Day 8: Conne River & Francois
Day 9: St.-Pierre, France
Day 10: Return to St. John’s

Related Stories
Ghost coast
Torngat Mountains

Resources
www.fick.ca
www.danielpayne.ca
Adventure Canada
Newfoundland & Labrador