These five women painters see landscapes as more than scenery
At the Women in Arts Network, we’re launching a new series of features that brings together artists connected by a shared theme, showcasing how each interprets it in their own unique way. For this first article, we turn to five painters who work with landscape, treating it as more than scenery. In their hands, landscape becomes a way of exploring memory, atmosphere, and the subtle shifts of light and weather that stay with us long after we leave a place.
Kirby, for example, paints from her studio in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, after years of studying art history and spending time in London and Florence. She gathers impressions of water, sky, and horizon, often painting on acid-etched tin, so that the light itself becomes part of the scene. Jackie Peacock began her career in photography and carried that eye for framing and light into watercolour, where she shares not just finished paintings but also tutorials and notes on her process. Her skies and forests seem to hover between detail and suggestion, like a fleeting pause in the day.
In Bend, Oregon, Lindsay Gilmore balances painting with family life and time outdoors. She translates walks, trails, and parks into works that people bring into their homes in many forms, from originals to prints and puzzles. Ottawa painter Sara Alex Mullen works alla prima with brushes and palette knives, using bold, intuitive colour to reimagine Canadian landscapes. Alongside a nursing career, she has built her practice through study, community projects, and wide exhibitions across the country. Canadian painter and teacher Allison Robin Smith creates semi-abstract landscapes through layered acrylics, building atmospheres that evoke the feeling of weather rolling in. Her Light Keeper Collection explores how shifts of light and colour can hold stillness, a theme shaped by more than a decade of practice and her daily rhythms as a mother and educator.
Together, these five women demonstrate how landscape can transcend a fixed view of land and sky. Their paintings hold onto the small changes of place and time, drawing us in the way a memory or a quiet horizon does. This feature invites you to step into their work and see how the landscape, in different hands, can become something much larger than scenery.
Kirby Fredendall@kirbyfredendall
Kirby is a painter from Bucks County, Pennsylvania. She studied Art History at Duke University, spent time learning in London and Florence, and later returned to studio practice with an MFA in painting. Over the years, she has exhibited in galleries across the United States and is represented by Candita Clayton Gallery and Sarah Gormley Gallery.
Her landscapes often blur the line between real places and those she remembers. Instead of recreating a specific scene, she gathers impressions of sky, water, and horizon, weaving them together into layered, atmospheric works. Kirby sometimes paints on acid-etched tin, a surface that adds depth and texture, letting light bounce in surprising ways. Looking at her job, you feel as though you’re standing inside a memory, part of it clear, part of it just out of reach.
Jackie Peacock @jackiepeacockart
Jackie began her creative journey in photography before moving toward painting. That early eye for composition and light carries into her watercolour practice, where she focuses on landscapes that balance detail with suggestion. She has built a community online by sharing not only her finished work but also tutorials and process notes for those who want to explore watercolour themselves.
Her paintings have a softness to them, skies that drift into mist, mountains that fade into the distance, and forests that invite quiet. She often works in layers, letting pigments move on the paper and settle into gentle transitions. There’s an openness in her watercolours that makes them feel less like a snapshot and more like a breath a fleeting moment you might notice while walking outdoors.
Lindsay Gilmore@lindsaygilmore
Lindsay Gilmore is an artist based in Bend, Oregon, where she lives with her husband and their two daughters. Painting has been part of her life since childhood, but it has grown into a way of staying connected to the outdoors that she loves so much. Whether it’s the colours of the sky on an evening walk or the shapes of trees on a trail, she gathers inspiration from the time she spends outside and carries it back with her into the studio.
Her paintings and prints often find their way into people’s homes as a gentle reminder of places they’ve visited or moments that feel familiar. Lindsay is passionate about making her work available in various forms, originals, prints, cards, puzzles, and more, so that anyone who feels a connection to her art can find a way to incorporate it into their life. Today, her work can be spotted in small shops, restaurants, offices, and even public spaces, reaching far beyond her studio.
Life in Bend offers Lindsay a balance between her practice and her time with family. When she’s not painting, she can often be found biking along mountain trails, skiing in winter, or enjoying the sunshine at local parks with friends and her daughters. These moments outdoors, both big and small, keep her grounded and continue to feed the sense of place and calm that comes through in her work.
Sara Alex Mullen@saraalexmullen
Sara Alex Mullen is a painter based in Ottawa whose work reimagines Canadian landscapes through bold strokes, layered textures, and colour choices guided by intuition. Working alla prima with brushes, palette knives, and carving tools, she paints from photographs and impressions gathered during her travels, capturing scenes that often remain untouched by human presence. For Sara, painting is a way of responding to the land around her, transforming skies, snow, and shadows into shifting hues of blue, pink, and purple.
Her journey as an artist runs alongside her career in nursing, and she continues to balance both practices while painting from her home studio in New Edinburgh. Over the years, she has studied through courses at the Ottawa School of Art and workshops with established painters, building her craft while also creating opportunities for her local community. From 2016 to 2019, she organised the New Edinburgh Artists’ Studio Tour, opening spaces for artists and neighbours to connect directly through art.
Sara’s paintings have been shown widely across Canada in galleries, festivals, and public spaces, and several galleries, including Santini Gallery in Ottawa and Canvas Gallery in Toronto, represent her. Her work invites viewers to notice the subtleties of the everyday environment, encouraging a way of seeing that turns the ordinary into something alive with colour and movement.
Allison Robin Smith@allisonrobinsmith_art
Allison Robin Smith is a Canadian painter, art educator, and mother whose work is grounded in a love for nature and the quiet moments it offers. She creates semi-abstract acrylic landscapes by layering watery paints, building atmospheres that evoke the sensation of mist rolling over fields or light filtering through a window after rain. These dreamlike qualities give her paintings a sense of calm and openness, inviting viewers to slow down and linger with them.
Her Light Keeper Collection is a body of work centred on light and memory, exploring how simple shifts in colour and texture can hold space for stillness. Over more than a decade of professional practice, Allison has continued to refine this language of softness and subtle variation, making paintings that carry a sense of nostalgia while also feeling rooted in the present.
Life outside the studio is just as crucial to her process. Living in Canada, she draws inspiration from the landscapes around her, as well as from her daily rhythms as a mother and teacher. These experiences inform her practice in both subtle and significant ways, from the natural scenes she encounters to the way she encourages others to explore their creativity.
For Allison, painting is a way of noticing and paying attention to the atmospheres that often pass us by, turning them into something lasting. Her works, whether large canvases or more intimate pieces, invite a quiet pause, allowing viewers to carry a little of that stillness into their own spaces.
Spending time with these five painters makes it clear that landscapes aren’t just about hills, skies, or coastlines. They can hold memory, emotion, and those fleeting moments that are hard to put into words. Kirby, Jackie, Lindsay, Sara, and Allison each bring their own rhythm to the canvas, shaped by their lives, the places they love, and the materials they choose.
Together, they show us that a painting of a landscape can evoke the sensation of stepping into a memory, taking a breath of fresh air, or even serving as a pause in the midst of a busy day. As this series continues, we’ll keep shining a light on artists who share a medium but follow their own paths, letting us see just how many ways there are to look at the world.
