“These are among the most contemporary or experimental of his paintings that show Serfas is not rutted in one particular genre or style. He remains nimbly committed to thinking critically, passionately and urgently about the environment. The perennial question for him: how to exercise his indefatigable dedication to abstraction while continuing to allude to the visually embedded narratives of open wilderness, the habitats shared by human and animal alike, and the distinct geography of the Canadian Prairies or the foothills of the Rockies.”
Derek J.J. Knight is an art historian, curator and artist
This Kind of Wilderness, Shawn Serfas: In Search of Choiceland, 2021
Shawn Serfas is a Canadian contemporary painter whose work explores the space where landscape, memory, and perception converge. Drawing on relational abstraction and environmental aesthetics, his paintings move between representation and pure form, reflecting a lifelong attentiveness to the natural world.
Raised in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, at the edge of the northern boreal forest, Serfas draws on the enduring presence of that terrain, its open water, dense treeline, and shifting light, to explore the relationships between place, perception, and experience. He is an Associate Professor of Visual Art at the University of British Columbia and lives and paints in British Columbia’s Okanagan region.
