Our opinion belief understanding is that the way to counter the emptiness of mass media is by painting living lived experiences; our posts become relevant reaching one person at a time; a kind of ‘fighting in the trenches’ type of engagements;

daylight spills down riverbanks into pure black surfaces
oxtongue river shoreline

24″ x 35″
watercolour / acrylic painted directly on gessoed panel

what I like about it is that It is not a landscape that you can sit in. I do not want you sitting in it; I want you to go off from it to all the streams and rivers you have ever wandered along, stepped and swam in. this is how i understand abstraction; as a starting point / a beginning from which to lose yourself in all your experiences and to which you can add new ones.’

a jagged line separating a bit of shoreline from its reflection descending forever downwards ( I know I have recently moved into painting more realistic landscapes – foreground horizon background and all) is my idea of a riverscape – approaching abstraction yet very real just enough to spark the imagination in everyone who sees it their own particular way based on their own particular experiences and memories

Ed Reliuga Astounding.

Micheal Zarowsky Hi Ed, in case my assumption that everyone can see my comments which i have now repeated 5 times is not true; and, hopefully it is not an offensive thing to do) that is, ‘what I like about it is that It is not a landscape that you can sit in. I do not want you sitting in it; I want you to go off from it to all the streams and rivers you have ever wandered along, stepped and swam in. this is how i understand abstraction; as a starting point / a beginning from which to lose yourself in all your experiences and to which you can add new ones.’

Theresa Loomis Good thoughts

Micheal Zarowsky thanks Theresa; what I like about it is that It is not a landscape that you can sit in. I do not want you sitting in it; I want you to go off from it to all the streams and rivers you have ever wandered along, stepped and swam in. this is how i understand abstraction; as a starting point / a beginning from which to lose yourself in all your experiences and to which you can add new ones.

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Randy Faulds Stupendous!

Micheal Zarowsky thanks Randy; what I like about it is that It is not a landscape that you can sit in. I do not want you sitting in it; I want you to go off from it to all the streams and rivers you have ever wandered along, stepped and swam in. this is how i understand abstraction; as a starting point / a beginning from which to lose yourself in all your experiences and to which you can add new ones.

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Randy Faulds Is this available Micheal?

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Randy Faulds I think I got a soaker here when I was a kid traipsing through the woods.

Micheal Zarowsky Hi Randy, I didn’t get a soaker here, but did in the winter time sink into the water and come up oozing mud up to near my knees, in the Eramosa river,(Wendy would not let me into the truck – strapped me to the roof n drove back) in Joshua creek, the Saugeen river, the moon river, in a largish number of ponds off Georgian bay, especially along 12 mile bay rd; hmmm seem to see a pattern here; we then stopped with the x country skis around water edges and started with snow shoes and stayed relatively dry since.

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Micheal Zarowsky Randy Faulds as to available, yes . am sitting here looking at it…

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Randy Faulds Micheal Zarowsky Rfaulds@rogers.com would like to know what you want for this one?

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Elva Hook Awesome, beautiful, lovely, gorgeous …

Micheal Zarowsky thanks Elva; (I assume everyone can see my comments which i have now repeated 3 times; hopefully that is not offensive to do) that is, ‘what I like about it is that It is not a landscape that you can sit in. I do not want you sitting in it; I want you to go off from it to all the streams and rivers you have ever wandered along, stepped and swam in. this is how i understand abstraction; as a starting point / a beginning from which to lose yourself in all your experiences and to which you can add new ones.’

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Mari Jo DeWaal That is sublime! Your words too

Micheal Zarowsky Hi Mari Jo, in case my assumption that everyone can see my comments which i have now repeated 4 times is not true; and, hopefully it is not an offensive thing to do) that is, ‘what I like about it is that It is not a landscape that you can sit in. I do not want you sitting in it; I want you to go off from it to all the streams and rivers you have ever wandered along, stepped and swam in. this is how i understand abstraction; as a starting point / a beginning from which to lose yourself in all your experiences and to which you can add new ones.’

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Ed Reliuga A wonderful reply, Michael. Indeed, this is not a landscape in which one might sit themselves. This is a micro-cosm of a landscape….a glimpse into the magic world of the hidden — the unseen…..the overlooked.

You have captured the beauty of the mundane…..the puddles…..the worlds that lurk beneath the branches and reeds…..away from what the eye is automatically drawn to.
You would have us see what we normally overlook. Suddenly, we are exposed to worlds unseen.

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Micheal Zarowsky a friend, who sadly has left us wrote; Zarowsky seems to have a line of vision that is altogether novel and intriguing. He sees some fragment of a far larger landscape and he takes this element, turns it a little, plays with the colours, and creates a painting that is highly appealing blend of Impressionism and realism.

Thus there is a grand landscape of cedar trees along a meandering sunlit river. This artist pierces this scene like a hungry accipiter, and in a moment the view becomes a great cedar root rising above a small pool of water. On the one side there is a clump of marsh marigolds, and on the other side sticks and reeds form a complex tangle Micheal sees all this but he elects to show us a small part of the water’s surface with a few leaves floating there, the broken reflection of the root, the yellow flowers and the reeds, and a veiled glimpse of the stones and ridges on the bottom of the pool.

The effect is startling because it is extraordinarily evocative of an Ontario landscape. We have seen all this intricate microcosm a thousand times, but it may never have occurred to us how much it is an essential part of the more familiar whole. We might wish that Micheal would stay at home in Grey County, or in Georgian Bay, or Muskoka, because we have an abundance of subject matter to offer him here. Even so, he has recently travelled to Nova Scotia where, to the surprise of no one at all, he has discovered dories and dinghies, great barnacle-encrusted posts, rocks, fish houses and salt ponds. And, of course, the result has been a whole new series of paintings in which we see the surfaces, lines, volumes and masses of colour that make us think of the sea and of the people who live there. Once again the work tends to be suggestive, allusive, and yet unmistakably of Nova Scotia, and by Micheal Zarowsky. It is a remarkable achievement. This artist has an uncanny ability to isolate the essence of a landscape, and then illuminate the small part of the whole, which becomes the very symbol of that which it represents. That, of course, is what abstraction is all about; but the genius of Micheal Zarowsky is that he presents the effect of abstraction while he is actually painting in a realistic way some isolated element that signifies, with utmost economy, the wider scene.

James V. Chism As ever….simply “great art”

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Micheal Zarowsky thanks James, in case my assumption that everyone can see my comments which i have now repeated 6 times is not true; and, hopefully it is not an offensive thing to do) that is, ‘what I like about it is that It is not a landscape that you can sit in. I do not want you sitting in it; I want you to go off from it to all the streams and rivers you have ever wandered along, stepped and swam in. this is how i understand abstraction; as a starting point / a beginning from which to lose yourself in all your experiences and to which you can add new ones.’

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Berni Aziz Micheal Zarowsky Asuming everyone can see your comments and you being you, I look forward to your poetry/truths that you sometimes include. PC is a step toward slavery.

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Micheal Zarowsky no truths really / the chronology of events always falls apart in my memory / what I do recall, is high stepping thru the snow along the oxtongue river was a day to get lost in things – a blue sky day / seeing our exhaling breath as it was 20 below yet the river was open (in stretches) we had gray jays squawking alongside us with whom we shared the bread from our sandwiches /