Airdrie landscape artist Christina Gouldsborough has a day job, but her heart is in her studio.
“I love all forms of art, which is a problem because it’s hard to find the time to do everything I want to do.”
Self-taught, Gouldsborough captures quintessential Alberta scenes in acrylic and oil using a vibrant representational style.
“My job is not to copy something, but to interpret it for other people and how I think they might feel when they’re looking at it.”
Her subjects, painted on a range of canvas sizes, depict those places people drive by but often don’t have the time to stop and appreciate. The Rockies, grain elevators, animals, fields, ghost towns and old, rusting vehicles slowly succumbing to the hands of time find new life through her deft brushwork and lavish use of colour.
Her canola field series, which are bright and immersive, is an example of her style, she explains.
“I want it to look real. I want you to feel like you can walk right into it and carry away the feeling of those sunny days of August and September into the cold months.”
Gouldsborough, who is originally from Northern Ontario, moved to Airdrie in 2000. She is currently the director of e-commerce for a wellness brand in the United Kingdom. She also facilitates meetings for Mastrius, an online artist mentorship service that features more than 100 industry professionals, including Airdrie’s Veronica Funk. She credits her mother for her love of art and nature.
“I grew up on a rural farm. My mom taught 4-H and was very creative. We did everything from baking to painting to needlepoint, so I learned the gamut.”
The youngest of her siblings by twelve years, she says she often felt like her mother’s only child and credits those early years to her lifelong love of art and nature.
Despite this, art has always been something she dabbled in, a passion she fit in the spare moments between raising a family and work. However, the pandemic gave her an unexpected opportunity.
”We were told to stay home, so I began to paint and make connections in the arts community.”
The artist mentoring service Mastrius was one of those connections.
”It’s remarkable. I’m learning from incredible artists like Robert Caldwell and Gaye Adams.”
In the fall of 2022, Gouldsborough participated in the Calgary Artists Studio Tour, where patrons visit the homes and workspaces of artists.
“We turned our home into a gallery, and I sold a lot of pieces.”
Since then, she’s been busy rebuilding her inventory, pulling inspiration from photographs she takes when travelling. She and her husband enjoy camping, which she uses as an opportunity to add to her repository of images.
“What I love about art is bringing back that feeling you had when you were somewhere else. I think that’s what I want people to have with my art. I want what you see in my paintings to be recognizable – that silo, the grain field, it’s all around us.”
You can check out more of Christina’s work at christinagouldsborough.art.
