Artist Statement:

This project seeks to raise awareness of the ecological significance of trees, particularly in the context of climate change and their essential contribution to our well-being. This artwork combines forms shared by humans and trees, seeking to deepen the understanding of our relationship and dependence on the natural world. It emphasises that the air we breathe is primary to our existence. 

Encroachment (Triptych) (oil on canvas), 51″

This painting attempts to show the encroachment of industrial pollution on the environment and the air we breathe.

Domiciles (Triptych) (oil on canvas), 27″ x 45″

This painting depicts the profound impact of being caught between rural and urban environments while contemplating the effects that air pollution has on both.

Garden on Fire (oil on canvas) 42″ x 27″

The painting visually and metaphorically shows the threat that the climate crisis poses to our earthly “Garden.”

The Air We Breathe #1 / Drawing of Lungs for Oak Tree (watercolour on paper), 7.75″ x 6.25″

My goal is to communicate and highlight the relationship between us and the air we breathe through the power of one tree by creating “lungs” that are displayed on a tree trunk.

On March 17, 2015, Joanna Mounce Stancil, a Shawnee/Cherokee author, wrote in the U.S. Forestry Service, Forestry: “It is proposed that one large tree can provide a day’s supply of oxygen for up to four people.” She also wrote: “According to the Arbor Day Foundation, in one year a mature tree will absorb more than 48 pounds of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and release oxygen in exchange.”

The Air We Breathe #2 / Lungs of the Earth (on a Linden Tree) (mixed media on fabric), 36″ x 30″

About the Artist:

Brenda Whiteway is a Canadian visual artist specializing in painting who lives and works in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island (Epekwitk). For Brenda, who has a BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, art-making is a way to find pattern amid chaos. Her art enables her to communicate ideas and convey a sense of the world around her. From the conception of an idea, through the struggle to create something from that idea, art-making is a process that provides her with sense and purpose. Her current work explores the passage of time—particularly as it relates to rural life, past and present—and the effects of urbanization and technology on traditional ways of life.