Peyton Cote

Silt and light

My work begins from an acknowledgment that land is not neutral, but shaped by layered and ongoing histories. I am currently working in Toronto, on the traditional territories of the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishinaabe, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat peoples, and I maintain a connection to Saskatchewan, where multiple Treaty territories intersect. Moving between these places, I recognize my position as a white settler artist, and the privilege embedded in my ability to move through, interpret, and represent landscapes. This awareness informs my approach to painting as a relational and accountable practice.Working in large-scale oil painting, I explore how landscape can shift from documentation to an expression of memory, emotion, and internal experience. Rather than depicting specific locations, my paintings draw from recollection, where atmosphere, colour, and feeling take precedence over precise detail. Through ideas of abstraction, and techniques of gesture, and layering colour, I aim to capture the affect of a place, how it is felt and remembered rather than seen.Scale and composition play a key role in this process. The horizontal format aligned with the horizon invites an embodied viewing experience, encouraging viewers to engage physically and emotionally with the work. My use of layering, visible brushwork, and gravity introduces a tension between control and release, reflecting the instability of memory and the shifting nature of perception.Ultimately, my paintings exist in a space between memory and presence, control and surrender. They are not fixed representations of place, but evolving reflections on how landscapes are experienced, remembered, and understood. Grounded in both personal experience and broader historical awareness, this work seeks to hold the complexity of our relationships to land with care, attention, and accountability.