Jane Isakson 
2025 Finalist
Artist Bio
A life-long interest in nature and the outdoors brought Jane north to the Yukon after finishing her BFA at the University of Alberta (with distinction, 1998). Her painting practice is nature based, featuring semiabstracted landscapes using geometric forms and varying perspectives to further a symbolic and poetic expression.
Continuing education has included artist residencies at the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation of New Mexico (2018), the Arctic Circle Svalbard (2013), Banff Centre (2014, 2004), Artist in the Park (Ivvavik 2009 and Newfoundland 2008). Awards include Canada Council Explore and Create Grant (2018), Yukon Advanced Artist Awards and Canada Council Travel Grants.
Career highlights include paintings in public collections: the Canadian Foreign Affairs Collection at Canada House in London UK, the Yukon Government and City of Whitehorse; participation in the Three Rivers Project and being featured in the 2006 season of the television series “Landscape as Muse”.
Artist Statement
My painting practice looks to nature and the landscape as the starting point to understand my place in the world; it is an experiential relationship that seeks out symbol and meaning within the workings of nature through observation and intuition. I look for forms and patterns in the landscape that suggest interconnections and intimations of the unseen. The paintings become a connective enterprise between nature and me and then again with the viewer. My primary medium is acrylic on canvas, generally medium and large scale.
Past bodies of work have focused on northern ecosystems and wilderness themes, including animal migrations, how historical and cultural events are reflected in the landscape, and the experience of the mystical in nature. The fundamental ideas that underpin these themes and continuing work are the importance of a physical connection to nature, nature as a mirror of self and of interconnectivity in the universe.
My most recently completed body of work, Points of Reference / Fracturing the Sublime, focused on distortions of perception in an Arctic landscape and the conflict experienced regarding the environmental impact of being in that space (Artwork 1-4). This work was inspired by an artist residency “the Arctic Circle” in Svalbard aboard a tall ship (2013). The body consists of 20 paintings and an interactive video installation.
My current project uses the landscape as metaphor for my own experiences at midlife (Artwork 5-8). It was initiated at the Helen Wurlitzer Artist Residency in Taos New Mexico (2018), where the literal exploration of the landscape – going up into the mountains and down into the Rio Grande Gorge – led me to a symbolic approach of inverting a landscape back onto itself. The idea of combining both directions – going up and going down – into one image resonated with my readings on midlife, particularly in Jungian psychology. This resulted in a new double-sided ‘landscape” with an emphasis on the middle ground. The idea of creating a destabilized space is something that I have touched on before in relation to environmental issues; but here it came from a place of examining the disruption of midlife, personal loss and transition. Through a process of making, un-making and re-making, my intention was and is to explore forward movement, with an idea to embrace change, try another route, seek beauty and balance through that process, and to ultimately relinquish the necessity of resolution or representation. I feel the paintings are yet an exploration rather than an explication of these ideas, and I struggle particularly with the last intention… This (too) is a body of work in progress.
The written works of Carl Jung (incorporating the shadow side); philosopher/theologian Nicholas of Cusa (learned ignorance); contemporary theoretical physicist Neil Turok (a mirror universe); Taoism and Buddhism (yin/yang and the middle way) – have been influences on my thinking and process. And although this is a very personal pursuit, considering current world disruptions, I believe the work turns towards the universal, as so many experience a state of instability and imposed change.
I Am Here
2014, acrylic on canvas, 42” x 42”
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This painting is from a body of work ‘Points of Reference / Fracturing the Sublime’ based on a journey to the high Arctic, in the Svalbard Archipelago, by tall ship. I anticipated to work with a theme of navigation – and that resonated with the actual experience in that I found my perception of time was altered and my sense of personal space in relationship to my environment was challenged. In navigation and life – we find our way based on points of reference which are related to both time (the time we live in for example) and space (where and what culture we inhabit) – what if those points of references are skewed or difficult 3to establish?
Personal space was, not surprisingly, confined on the ship, but that experience extended further; out of necessity (safety regarding polar bears) the perimeters of our activity ashore were restricted, and we had to remain and work in a defined area – a triangle between three armed guides. For me, this led to an intensified awareness of my personal space in relation to my physical surroundings and inspired the installation activities that I undertook both on the land and on the ship. Using sticks and string, I mapped my location in relation to landmasses and noticeable formations, (support photo image 2of3). Referencing traditional navigation methods of map reading, triangulation, and celestial observation, I sought to generate another level of experiencing/ understanding my location in the physical world. In ‘I Am Here’ – I am locating myself, not on a map but physically in relationship to the reference points (mountain tops) around me.
The installations also proved to be a prism through which to view the landscape. In this and other paintings, close examination will show that the navigational lines ‘drawn’ onto the landscape also fracture it – things do not line up exactly (detail of artwork image 3of3). For me this indicated both the potential inaccuracy of perception, but also my own perception of instability regarding going into an area where my presence is part of the larger negative impact on the ecology.
Underwater Imaginative Exploration #2
2015, acrylic on canvas, 84” x 66”
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This painting is also part of the ‘Points of Reference / Fracturing the Sublime’ series. I spent some time imagining what was happening under the sea and ice and presented the result with what was above it. (Photo 1 shows the painting in a Gallery setting with its companion piece, A Moment in Time #2 hung above it and adjacent to Underwater Imagination Exploration #1/ Moment in Time #1)
Align | Realign
2019, acrylic on canvas, two panels, 132” x 84”
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Being on a tall ship fostered a sense of going back in time, a historical means of travel in a place that seemed suspended (literally frozen) in time. Some of the activities I undertook while there were taking “imprints” from the ship itself – putting canvas under the ropes of the wrapped sails on the mast and running the rising anchor over canvas to make marks (shown in support photo). I incorporated these patterned imprints into the painting Align | Realign and showed them separately as well (Artwork in Gallery setting). The idea of navigating the ship was interesting to me because the of the constant state of adjusting to compensate for the elements of sea motion and wind. The point of reference that one steers toward remains the same – but everything else is changing and the captain must constantly realign to keep course. The painting references this with a shadow image of the ship on a different adjacent trajectory to the right side of the image.
Points of Reference |Fracturing the Sublime
2019, Interactive video projection Installation, Scene Samples, (Interactive programing Baptiste Bohelay, production Marten Berkman)
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To accompany the paintings from the Arctic and to build on the themes of spatial awareness and distortion of perception, I made (with technical assistance) an interactive projection installation. It was comprised of photo projections on two opposite facing walls, one side with images of the pristine wilderness of Svalbard and the other showing areas with industrial impact. As the viewer enters the space, a motion sensor detects their movement, as they move towards one side or the other the image either retreats or advances, but not necessarily as you would expect, as you go towards the industrial image, it advances towards you and as you approach the wilderness image, it retreats away from you. This sample shows the projections side by side rather than opposite each other, so the effect must be imagined here. The intent was to create a destabilizing and distorting experience of space for the participant (as was my experience in the Arctic). Animations of some of the paintings and their actual location were also included – breaking and rejoining along their ‘fracture’ lines.
Seasonal Change
2020, acrylic on canvas, 21” x 21”
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This and the next 3 artworks are part of my current body of work that I am engaged with. The images all involve overlaying an inverted version of a landscape back onto itself – resulting in a new version of a ‘place’. ‘Seasonal Change’ is based on the Takhini River, the inverted fall season has been overlayed with the winter. The season may change, but the landscape, and I, carry with us remnants of the previous one. A middle section is left bare.
Never Ending Story
2022, acrylic on canvas, 21” x 21”
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‘Never Ending Story’ is based on the Yukon River ice breakup. The processes of a landscape (of a river’s freeze and thaw and changing movement) stretch both into the past and into the future. My inversion of the image hints at this and creates patterns of offset symmetry and wave forms – the structure of the universe perhaps(?). A natural emphasis developed where white ice overlayed white ice in the middle ground; to me it feels like a state of ‘present’ time that yet includes both past and future.
Here And Here
2022, acrylic on canvas, 21” x 21”
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In my back yard I find that things are as they have always been, but for some reason I thought they were changed. Perhaps I just saw what I wanted to, but I am left wondering.
Untitled Work in Progress
2024-, acrylic on canvas, 54” x 54”
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In actual fact my life has been in a state of disruption and change for the last few years, and the work I have outlined and begun on this very theme has been generally sidelined. I have just now found the ‘space’ to recommit to this project at a larger scale, which was always my intention. This new piece in progress returns to the starting point of these ideas – the Rio Grande canyon in Taos New Mexico. I have included an earlier small version (study) of this location, shown in image Inside Out and Upside Down, one of the first efforts in this new direction.