Skate marks interest me because of the particular quality of line created. These traces of what has passed suggest the comings and goings of others; paths crossed, lines tangled, circuitous routes.

When I first encountered the clear ice and the complex air bubble patterns frozen within it on lakes near Banff, it was the vertiginous shifts between micro and macro views and the painterly qualities of motion held within the ice initially drew me to photograph the subject. The gestural traces within the ice and the drawing-like skate marks on its surface led me to explore working on the surfaces of the photographs. The criss-crossed and circling skate marks interwoven on the reflective plane of ice creates a "drawing" through the incised lines left by the torque and glide of the skater's movement .

With the lake bottom and trapped air bubbles visible beneath the ice surface, the etched line in this surface, and the reflected landscape and sky on its surface, these images record the fusion of under, on and above through the frame of the camera. The photograph, a split second capture, is then slowly overpainted blurring the readability of the image in terms of its medium. This migration between fact and fiction interests me. My intent is to literally slow down looking, first for myself, and through the process, perhaps for the viewer .

It is this open ended dialogue between photography and painting I explore in these images which play with the veracity of photography and the painterly qualities of abstraction.