Photoset
ARTIST GOING WILD: KYRA DAHLKE
by JESSICA WILSON
Wild woman that she is, Kyra Dahlke gets off on pushing boundaries. When she hitches a ride on her brush and steps out of the world and into her canvass, she finds the space outside of herself that the true artist is intuitively guided to. With a meditative breath, she surrenders and allows something else — something deeper and more primal — to take over. And when she resurfaces, what’s left behind is a swirling vortex of something so intrinsically feminine and yet also so gutsy, that the first time I saw it, my skin prickled, and I felt a bit like getting naked.
A perfect match then for Wild Women Expeditions, Canada’s biggest female-only adventure travel company, known across North America for bringing women together to push boundaries, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
“Being in nature is a powerful force; it connects us to secret places that are known only to us. It demands that we push beyond the boundaries of what we thought possible. My art is reflective of this process.” says Kyra.
But not just any art is boundless enough in its inclusivity to set the tone for a night full of brave and brash babes reuniting across a galaxy of interconnectivity.
The 20th anniversary of Wild Women Expeditions marked Kyra’s first show, a fortuitous combination of friendship and finally being ready to let the world see her talent, raw and unfiltered. Kyra Dahlke’s art embodies the spirit of Wild Women in that it’s reflective of those meditative moments in nature when we cease to think and are able to just be.
“Wild Women is about woman coming together in perfect trust and harmony. It is about women facing their fears and challenging themselves to doing more than they thought possible. It means a safe place to explore new ideas.”
Whether pushing boundaries in a kayak, on a mountain, or in front of a canvass, women everywhere deserve — nay, crave — that connection with wild space, where expectations (both real and imagined) fall away like overripe pears from a tree; where the very notion of freedom ceases to be an intangible wish and becomes instead a superhero-like alter ego where nothing is impossible and everything is suddenly gleefully within reach.
“Art is inspired by experience, and it is the unique experiences women have on our adventures that move them to create such natural wonders as Kyra’s paintings”, muses WWE Director Jennifer Brammer. “Being a Wild Woman is about being free, uninhibited, sensual, playful, connected to source and that is what magically manifests on her colourful canvases”.
