We now have the knowledge to transform human and environmental well-being, recognizing that we are inextricably interconnected with the natural world. Ann Dale’s (NET Board Chair) recent book, Beyond the Edge: Reconciliation Reconnection Regeneration, is a roadmap to create a future that is socially just, culturally rich, spiritually fulfilling, ecologically regenerative, and economically circular.

Each chapter of the book is illuminated by an original painting by Nancyanne Cowell, widely regarded as one of Canada’s powerful atmospheric landscape painters. Her paintings are an expression of love for living things and an inspired vision of the eternal. Together with Dale’s insights developed over 25 years, the book invites readers to push for change, both individually and collectively, and offers solutions to leap beyond the edge toward regenerative futures. It is within this integrated relationship between insight and art, where the paintings take on their full meaning and emotional captivation. As art is created in solitude, receiving an art review is considered rare and significant for an artist. It signifies that a critic or art historian has taken the time to deeply engage with, interpret and validate an artist’s work.

Stephanie Webb, a well-regarded art historian made annual visits to Nancyanne Cowell’s studio throughout the five years she created the paintings for Beyond the Edge.  She was the first to see and deeply absorb how Nancyanne created the joined architectural seam in her diptychs to mark and paint our built environment. A brilliant compositional mark, this is a first for the art world.

All of us here at the team for Beyond the Edge, are incredibly proud to share below, the full Art Review by Stephanie Webb that gives tribute to the profound and luminous paintings that Nancyanne made to illuminate hope in a broken, yet beautiful world.

THE ‘DIVIDE’: Beyond the Edge Art Collection

By Stephanie Webb, BA, BFA, MA
Art Historian & Curator (contemporary art)

Nancyanne Cowell is one of Canada’s leading atmospheric artists. Refreshingly original, her stunning and sensuously vibrant ‘ecoscapes’ profoundly capture the cyclical nature of our existence. When handled with such virtuosity, Cowell’s subjects — love, life and death — compellingly speak to the fragility of the world, as we know it. These powerful, yet tenderly painted atmospheric paintings show evidence of making, unmaking and remaking, conjuring spectres of the inexorable passage of time. Yes, time is fleeting but, here, it is marked and recorded by the tempo of the brush … the whisper of a wing, a suggestion of a wave, an edge, flashes of flesh, drops of pooling light, hints of the eternal: Am I at a perilous precipice, witnessing a birth — the first breath — or caught in time, gazing deeply into the jeweled tones of a dragonfly’s eye?

But what to make of the line pulled across each of these works, the lines that call attention to the joint where two canvases meet? Or the undulating curl of paint just below these ‘pulls’ and the long, luscious drips that cascade as a result? That the join is a reminder of our built environment is a given, but how Cowell manipulates the paint here speaks of so much more: Is it the line drawn in the sand, the line we cross at our peril, a timely reminder that we are edging irrevocably towards the point of no return? Perhaps, but could it not also present a way forward, represent the fine line — the tight-rope we must balance upon as we move further towards the edge, towards a future that may be bright or otherwise?

Standing before the collection, as my eyes cross each constructed ‘divide’ in turn, and pause to take breath at the lip, then follow the drips down and down through the depths of the limpid glossy ‘water’ below, I am reminded of ancient augurs who used scrying bowls when called upon to divine meaning before important ventures began or at times of uncertainty, an uncertainty that continues to this day. The line between success and failure, the here and there, the present and future is as infinitesimal and as fragile as before but, like the opaque prophecy of an ancient seer, Cowell’s work rewards sustained viewing and contemplation. It is deliciously ambiguous — as mysterious and as multivalent as it is layered. These large format paintings bring forth deep emotions, and, because I am given space to integrate my own interpretations, Cowell leads me not to the brink of a bottomless chasm, to the ‘divide’, but ultimately to a place of hope.

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