Natalie Warkentin

Painter, poet, and lover of people and place, Natalie Warkentin has devoted her life to becoming a Creative Catalyst in the Burnaby, neighbourhood she calls ‘home’. Local to the Burnaby, BC, Canada, Natalie grew up painting the flora of Deer Lake, going for bike rides around Trout Lake, and hiking the North Shore mountains. Since childhood, Natalie’s way of being in the world has been phenomenologically shaped by her belonging to, and learning from the landscape of her locale. In a post-modern moment of anthropocentrism and industrialization, Natalie attempts to use Simone’ Weil’s notion of “attention” as a “form of generosity” to attentively live with the natural landscape around her. For Natalie, the process of painting has helped her pay attention to the gift of the dynamic, vibrant, natural surroundings that shape her sense of place-ness. In attending to the flora around her, and responding through the medium of paint, Natalie seeks to steward the land as a gift rather than commodity!