In a new exhibition of paintings, Edie Marshall offers a fresh look at one of Saskatchewan’s most familiar roadside images. We’ve all seen them, those once-beloved old family farm houses now crumbling under the relentless force of time. And we’ve wondered. What happened to the people who lived there? Did they just get up from supper one evening and walk away? Is there anyone left who remembers what used to be?

Yet somehow in Edie Marshall’s hands, those forgotten days aren’t as lost as they might be.  Perhaps her free, expressive paint application and unexpected colour reflect the spirit of those who were here before. Or maybe we see the relentless winds that try to sweep away all who stand in front of them leaving a different kind of legacy. In a gift of beauty out of hopelessness, Edie Marshall offers us a resonant visual description that captures the haunting beauty of decay.

Edie Marshall is a Saskatchewan artist whose art deals with the landscape of ecology. Finding an unlimited and often overlooked source of colours, shapes, ideas, and images in the land around her, she creates large energetic canvases and small intimate ones as a way to describe the energy and interrelatedness of a location and its diverse and unique ecosystems. Her paintings also consider the environment, the history, and the culture of place, linking the past to the present.

Edie Marshall: The Old Home Place is available on the website at Grasslands Gallery Online by clicking the button below, and concurrently in a pop-up version in Made.Cafe at With Love Collective, 2150 Walker Street Entrance B, Swift Current SK, Canada. 

Edie Marshall, “Breaking Down”, gouache on paper, 9x12”, framed, $620

Edie Marshall, “Chimney House”, oil on panel, 12x14”, $575

Edie Marshall, “Unoccupied”, oil on cradled panel, 10x10”, $425