Greg Innes paints the wild spaces of Vancouver Island — forests, coastlines, animals, open fields, and imagined horizons.

Based in Sooke, his work begins either outdoors in shifting light or in the studio where memory and imagination reshape real landscapes into something slightly altered. Familiar places become contemplative spaces.

For nearly three decades Greg built fine rustic furniture by hand, sketching each design and shaping wood gathered with care. That deep familiarity with material now informs his painting practice. Many works are completed with handcrafted driftwood or bark frames made in his forest workshop — extending the landscape beyond the painted surface.

Composition plays a quiet but central role in his work. Underlying geometry and dynamic symmetry guide the placement of forms, while figures and faces — when present — are rendered with deliberate attention against looser painterly surroundings.

His influences include Lawren Harris, A.Y. Jackson, Maynard Dixon, Salvador Dalí, and Gustav Klimt — artists who combined structure, imagination, and atmosphere.

Greg’s current focus is on oil painting and the creation of frames that carry the forest into the finished piece.