Quails' Gate Lakeview, painted by Robert Wood
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/ Robert Wood
March 09, 2025 - 7:00 AM
West Kelowna's Robert E. Wood uses his childhood memories of growing up in the Okanagan to inform his work as a landscape artist.
Growing up in West Kelowna meant swimming lessons in Okanagan Lake, seeing orchards and vineyards every day and feeling a general sense of connectedness to the planet, all of which Wood says bleeds into his art.
“It was a little tiny little town... it was a magical, wonderful, perfect little place to grow up as a child,” Wood tells iNFOnews.ca.
“I really do feel that when I'm painting the Okanagan, that all of those memories are there and all those feelings and emotional connections and everything are there, and I think that transfers into the paintings.”
Skaha Autumn, painted by Robert Wood.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/ Robert Wood
Wood, who paints in the impressionist style, feels a drawn to many scenes around Western Canada, though the Okanagan has his heart.
“I feel very, very connected to the valley, to the agriculture, the vineyards, the orchards, the lake. It feels very nostalgic. It just feels like home,” he says.
To create his paintings, Wood uses a palette knife, a tool typically used to mix paint colours rather than paint with, to create extra texture in his work to capture the true spirit of what he sees.
From trees covered in fall foliage, bubbling brooks and orchards full of apples, the texture in Wood’s work captures how lush the Okanagan is through his eyes.
Sunset at Rattlesnake Island, painted by Robert Wood
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/ Robert Wood
Wood particularly likes to paint scenes featuring the arrowleaf balsamroot, Kelowna’s official flower that is native to the Southern Interior.
“It's a happy thing for me to see when I see them, but I think that those paintings are... true to life. It's like this sort of visual paradise that is beautiful in your mind to enter into when you're looking at the painting, and you just want to be there,” Wood says.
Changing Seasons, West Kelowna, painted by Robert Wood
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/ Robert Wood
He says helping people appreciate the beauty around them is part of his duty as an artist.
“Our world and our lives, we're so busy and everything's so hectic and we work so much and the world is not always a terrifically happy place," he says. "If I can, through my paintings... let people slow down a bit, find some peace, find some beauty in the world around them or in their day, then I think that's a pretty wonderful thing to be able to do."
Wood's art can be viewed and purchased online and in person through Hambleton Galleries in Kelowna.
Okanagan Sunflowers, Kalamoir Park, painted by Robert Wood
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/ Robert Wood
Shaha Bluffs, painted by Robert Wood
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/ Robert Wood
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