Natasha Henderson's Artist Statement:

As a relative newcomer to the Yukon Territory in the summer of 2020, I have found my art to have changed within this short timeframe, as a reaction to this environment. I react to the wonder of the world that is around me. Having moved from a large urban centre (Montreal) to a smaller sized, quite remote town (Dawson City) I find that excursions into the wilderness give me a sense of my own ultimate smallness within the amazing world I am in. It is a reminder. When I set out to express the moments I find in nature, I am aware of the buzzing of the insects… the fact that a bear, moose, or lynx might stumble upon me, and that I also am treading on a land where people have lived for thousands of years. Visually things here are more intense than I have ever before experienced. As such, I needed to change my art-making style to express the genuine change I felt within myself as I looked around me with new, open eyes.
The media I use to start with is often dry pigments and media (pencil, pencil crayon, charcoal) with light water-based pigments (watercolour, acrylic) and finally some thin oil paint layers. Part of my change in process has been to be working lighter and more finely. With this, there is a sense of the many layers of light that are visible. In summertime, with so many hours of light available in the day, I feel there is “more” light. Things around me have more of a chance to absorb and reflect the light. There are more colours here. All this is layered, like things are in my artwork. Also, in winter when it is dark, it is “more” dark, with more layers of darkness. The possibilities for extremes are much greater, and the stakes are greater. 
I am expressing a bit of my love of being within this landscape, along with a genuine fondness for the traditional artistic materials that I use.