Manitoba painter highlighting the beauty of Lake of the Woods

A Manitoba painter’s new art collection is highlighting the beauty of Lake of the Woods.

The new exhibition by Randolph Parker is called ‘Islands: Lake of the Woods,’ and features paintings of islands from every region of Lake of the Woods.

Each painting includes GPS coordinates that show the exact locations of the landscapes that inspired the works of art.

“They’re so site-specific that in the future, using the coordinates, the people who are either given a painting or they buy one, they can go to that area and discover that it’s an actual place,” Parker said in an interview on with CTV Morning Live on Wednesday.

Over the past five years, Parker and Bill Mayberry, the founder of Mayberry Fine Art, travelled the waters of Lake of the Woods to find the best island compositions for Parker to turn into paintings. The pair travelled 2,800 kilometres around the area to find the most idyllic landscapes.

“Every single piece is a place that Bill Mayberry and myself have gone to. We walked the land there, we circled the islands,” Randolph said.

“It’s a big journey. It takes a lot of time, a lot of energy.”

Mayberry said this journey was inspired by painter Walter Phillips and his fascination with the places that Phillips painted.

“Walter came to Winnipeg in 1913 and he discovered Lake of the Woods a year after, and he made it a passion to work and do paintings and block prints from Lake of the Woods for the next 25 years,” Mayberry said.

Mayberry said he eventually began to search for some of the locations in Phillips’ work, and ended up finding the island in Phillips’ painting called ‘Sunset, Lake of the Woods.’

“That’s where it began. It was the discovery of this island,” he said.

“I took Randolph Parker there in 2014, and when the two of us stood in that location, it was one of those goosebump moments where you knew you were standing in the same place that Walter did his painting in 1925.”

‘Islands: Lake of the Woods’ opens tomorrow at Mayberry Fine Art.

- With files from CTV’s Joseph Bernacki.