Sharon grew up on the Canadian prairies spending many of her childhood summers at the family cottage in Northern Saskatchewan. As a result nature is an influential factor in her life.

I quote her, “The wind … I always feel the wind and so it has been since I was a child.  It stimulated my senses and expanded the world of the dreamer within. The wind helped me enter my simple uncomplicated world of nature.  It was my first teacher.”.

As a child Sharon liked to draw then later, when she went on to post secondary education, she became aware of the arts and artists. She loves reading about them and viewing their work. Sharon especially marvels at Leonardo da Vinci’s insatiable quest for knowledge and his legacy of drawings, at Egon Schiele’s raw emotional self portraits created with a few dynamic colours and brushstrokes, Josef Albers’ 40 year love affair with colour and Andrew Wyeth’s ability to make the ordinary extraordinary in his beautifully composed textural paintings. As well, the late Chuck Close’s gridded works where ‘abstraction and realism collide in the topography of the face’ fascinate her. Although she admires their techniques and unique styles it is how they are masterfully  used to create works that elevate us that inspires her.

 It is Sharon’s goal to strike an emotion,  whether that be the essence of something, a sense of intrigue, a moment in time or a reaction impossible to articulate. She is continually learning and trying, combining intuition and technique then following where this leads.  Her style is in constant evolution but, whether it is abstracted or more realistic it always has an organic element reflective of her connection with nature.