Gordon Henschel
Biography and Artist’s Statement


My father was a trapper in an age when dog teams and canoes were the mode of travel in Eastern Manitoba and Northern Ontario where, from pre-school years until my late teens, I was literally a product of that wilderness. It has irrevocably shaped my art.

Always a drawing enthusiast, I learned to paint in oils and acrylics under the tutelage of Arni Siggurdson, an artist friend with an art degree from Denmark. The Group of Seven and the French Impressionists were soon discovered and incorporated into my style. Painting direct from nature, “en plein air”, was a way of working that would continue for me for the rest of my life.

After a move to Port McNeill on Northern Vancouver Island, watercolours became an important part of my life in order to capture the soft hues and mists of the coast. I have been painting for over forty years, twenty-one of them full time professionally and have always considered myself privileged to be able to interpret the world around me in this marvelous fashion.

Over the years I have been associated with innumerable galleries and have been a signature member of the Federation of Canadian Artists for over twenty of them. In 1980, my wife, Ann and I began Henschel Fine Arts which evolved into our own two thousand square foot gallery and a six hundred square foot studio.

We are very much “partners” in this enterprise, which has become a Northern Vancouver Island point of interest and tourist attraction. Many of our visitors have become good friends and we continue to enjoy making new ones every day. Our website has existed for over four years and keeps us in touch with our many collectors from all over the world.

I continue to enjoy as much "plein air" painting as possible in a wilderness only minutes away and my favourite quotation is from Salvador Dali: “ Some days I think I will die from an overdose of satisfaction”!