Tim Schouten was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba and studied at Arts’ Sake Inc. in Toronto. Schouten lives and maintains a studio near Petersfield, Manitoba.

Schouten addresses ideas about landscape and memory in his paintings. He presents not a landscape of sylvan idyll, but rather a landscape that celebrates the trials and triumphs of history. Landscape as a place of human history, as much as a place of godly splendor.

Schouten is concerned with the idea that history can have a felt presence in a place. He attempts to convey a sense of that presence in his work. The landscape is treated as a mutable tome in which histories are embedded. Encaustic lends itself well to the methods of layering, covering up and revealing that he uses in his painting. A process that mimics the layering, burying and resurfacing processes of history itself.

A 1998 series of paintings titled Treaty Lands considered the Canadian Landscape in the context of Treaty Territories, whether defined as ceded or reserved by the eleven “numbered treaties” and other treaties made between First Nations and Canada. The Treaty Lands title later became an umbrella title for an ongoing string of projects, which include a web project, a major bookwork and several painting series.

Schouten’s current project, The Treaty Suites was conceived in 2003 as eleven suites of paintings based on photographs taken at the exact physical locations of the signings of each of the numbered treaties made between 1871 and 1954. This work requires extensive archival and local research. For Schouten, finding the physical locations of the treaty signings grounds them in a real place and time.

Schouten has shown his work in solo and group exhibitions in Canada and the U.S. and he has received awards from Canada Council, Manitoba Arts Council and the Ontario Arts Council. His works are in private, corporate and public collections.