Fire, Rain, Circle, Square (2016)
Acrylic on canvas — From the Fire & Rain Social Art Project (25 outdoor paintings created during the year of the Fort McMurray wildfire) Art is Freedom
Fire & Rain Project
In 2016, Alberta was split between burning and flooding — wildfire smoke one week, torrential rain the next. I painted Fire, Rain, Circle, Square along the North Saskatchewan River during that volatile season, working outdoors as part of my Fire & Rain Social Art Project. That year I completed 160 street shows across Edmonton’s “public” squares, only to learn later that most of those spaces — City Hall, the Legislature grounds, and many plazas — were not truly public at all. That tension between public life and government‑controlled space became part of the work, and still shapes my practice today. (Below) The Four Flags of🍁US.
The Grande Stage Democracy Art Series: This painting asks viewers to question the boundaries placed around artistic expression and citizen‑driven free press in Canada. It reflects on why creative and journalistic voices sometimes face restriction within a democratic society. The composition places two well‑known figures within parallel storms—each confronting a distinct moment of political and social upheaval—inviting the viewer to consider how eras of turbulence influence leadership and art. On the left, George W. Bush stands as the painter‑president, surrounded by the melting steel and fires of war that followed the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. His storm is one of geopolitical shockwaves, military decisions, and the long shadow cast across global politics. On the right, Jason Kenney faces a different kind of crisis: a world gripped by a global pandemic and the cascading collapse of oil prices in Alberta and abroad. His storm is viral, economic, and deeply local—an upheaval that reshaped the province’s political and social landscape. Together, the two figures form a study in leadership under pressure, painted into a single unsettled sky. The terror attacks of 2001 and the pandemic nineteen years later become twin markers of instability—two moments when the world shifted, and when Alberta felt the shock through falling oil prices, political strain, and public uncertainty. This work stands as both a parallel and a provocation: How do leaders navigate storms they cannot control? And why, in a democracy, is the citizen artist still told where they may or may not stand? XLife, On Guard for Thee.
XLife
July, 2016: While painting along the rising North Saskatchewan River, an Indigenous vagabond named Chief No Tribe joined me. He watched as I worked the textured square — a skull submerged in oil sands. He spoke about circles: the woman’s womb, the stars, the sun, the moon, the atom, the planet. He reminded me that land and water follow circular laws, not the straight lines and squares we impose on maps. His teaching stayed with me for a decade and later inspired my More Circles Than Squares Social Art Project. The painting carries those teachings: Circle — natural cycles, Indigenous knowledge, the shape of life. Square — human boundaries, ownership lines, the illusion of control. Fire — the force that reshapes land. Rain — the force that heals, floods, and erases. The textured square at the centre holds the storm: tangled roots, scorched earth, the memory of smoke. The skull inside isn’t about death — it’s about witness, perhaps even a warning of irreversible extinction. It’s a reminder that everything living leaves a trace of its moment in time. Around that square, the field shifts from heat‑orange to cool‑turquoise, echoing the wild swings in Alberta’s weather that year — the atmosphere we all breathe whether we choose to or not. This painting marks the moment where my Citizen Free Press practice and my painting practice fused: documenting the world as it was then, and as it feels now.
The painting was revisited again in 2015, transforming fully into an abstract. In 2025, outside the same festival grounds, I completed the work by painting the backside of the canvas, titled The Roots of War and Retribution. The piece is created in memory of the nine Afghan boys killed on March 1, 2011, when a U.S. military helicopter mistakenly targeted children gathering firewood. This tragedy is well‑documented and remains one of the most painful civilian‑casualty incidents of the Afghanistan War. The painting is rooted in the global aftermath of September 11, 2001, the U.S.‑led war that followed, and Canada’s involvement in that conflict. It also carries the emotional force of Bruce Cockburn’s protest song If I Had a Rocket Launcher, written in response to violence against civilians. Cockburn — a Juno Award winner and member of the Order of Canada — continues to write and perform; he currently lives in the United States with his family. Across its 25‑year evolution, Nine Afghan Boys Gathering Firewood gathers themes of war, innocence, retribution, and witness. It stands as a tribute to the boys and a reminder of the human cost carried by nations, civilians, and soldiers alike.
Birds of a Feather Art Project
Doodle Notes From the UFO Floor : Continued
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When I first looked at it, it reminded me of Notre Dame Cathedral burning. It also reminds me of some of Van Gogh’s paintings. If we are burning now, like Notre Dame, we will rise better and stronger." - Marg McCuaig-Boyd, 2020 Twitter X
Nine Afghan Boys Gathering Firewood — Oils, Acrylic (2000–2001, 2013, 2015, 2025)
Nine Afghan Boys Gathering Firewood is one of my multi‑year social‑art works, created across four periods. It began in 2000–2001 as a painting of Bruce Cockburn playing a uke beside Alberta’s Lake Louise. In 2013, during a protest outside the gates of the Edmonton Folk Festival, the uke was replaced with a rocket launcher, shifting the work into a direct response to war and civilian suffering.
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