Collection: LESLEY WALKER-FITZPATRICK

Lesley Walker-Fitzpatrick was born in Scotland, spent her early childhood in Guyana and moved to Canada with her family in 1952. She studied photography with William Giles at the University of Rochester before moving to Toronto in 1971, where her vision was sharpened by exposure to the work of Edmund Soame (Head of Photography at OCA), painter Richard Stodart and Dave Heath (who taught Photography at Ryerson). In 1989, her collaborative polaroid project with Dave Heath called Lesley Walker: A Collaborative Portrayal was shown at the Ryerson Gallery (Toronto), Artscourt (Ottawa) and Light Impressions (Rochester). Lesley uses photography to better understand the past, and to explore identity and the natural world. She received the Blue Diamond Photo Award Certificate of Excellence in 2013 and has been represented by Agora Gallery since 2014.

For almost five decades, Lesley Walker-Fitzpatrick has spent precious time at an isolated cottage on Rock Lake, exploring its beauty and varied forms of life. She has documented this sublime place over the decades both in pictures and words, and in so doing reveals her reverence for and joy in nature, as well as her ongoing concern for the environment. Of the importance of this place to her, she says:

Rock Lake has been a sanctuary and an inspiration to me since the early 1980s. Fortunate to be able to stay in a cottage with water access only, I came to know the familiar paths and plants of this wild and sacred place. I photographed Rock Lake over the years with a variety of cameras from single lens reflex to polaroid to digital and recently iPhone. Many personal stories, memories and adventures took place in this beautiful area. I was often inspired to write poetry.

Lesley Walker-Fitzpatrick: Rock Lake Reverie on display at Agora Gallery Stratford from October 6 to 26, 2025.