From Antarctica to the North Pole and with great emphasis on the Canadian wilderness, artist David McEown celebrates some of the most beautiful, yet fragile, natural heritage of our planet though the creative act of painting.

After graduating from the Ontario College of Art and Design in 1992, David spent his last 2 years off campus pursuing independent studies at the Algoma School of Landscape Arts based in the remote wilderness of Northern Ontario.  After completing these studies he stayed several more years teaching and wilderness guiding.  For his body of work done in this Lake Superior region steeped in indigenous culture and Canadian landscape painting history, David was awarded the Elizabeth Greenshield Foundation Grant in 1994 and again in 1999.

Also in 1999, he was elected a member of the Canadian Society of Painters in Watercolour for which he served as a director from 2002 to 2007.

David's work has received national and international awards, in various juried shows.  His most prestigious award came in 2005 with the A.J. Casson Medal from the Canadian Society of Painters in Watercolour.

Since then he has earned a reputation as one of Canada's most accomplished and travelled landscape watercolourists, represented with paintings in many public and corporate collections worldwide as well as articles published in numerous magazines.

From 2005, David has focused his art on the polar regions, a journey that led him to circumnavigate both the Arctic and Antarctica.  On board research vessels and polar class icebreakers, hiking, and even skiing to the North Pole, he continues to work on a project witnessing and recording the beauty of a world that is rapidly changing and disappearing.

Through the spontaneity of watercolour and letting the forces of nature participate in the painting process, his paintings emphasize the sense of impermanence and change.

David loves to paint on location, a way to meditate and connect with the landscape, but he also loves to share his art in the studio by teaching.  Since 2002, he has been leading workshops at the Royal Ontario Museum, and is sought after by prestigious art clubs in Canada.  Internationally, as part of various artist-in-residence programs, he has been sharing his enthusiasm and unique way of seeing with participants from all over the world.

A talented speaker and performer, David is also very keen to share his passionate multi-media presentations and watercolour demos, hoping to communicate and bring an awareness of the wonders of our planet.

"This experience is healing.  The process of painting in the ancient groves or from a blade of grass always gives me a feeling of being connected to something greater than ourselves, a sense of love flows through nature with all of it's interrelationships"

David McEown

CSPWC    AOCAD