BENEATH THE LONG GRASS: THE CONSTRUCTED CANVAS: presents an acute awareness of something that lies beneath. My work is supported by strong underlying structures and constructed canvases; I am interested in a clearly evident means of construction. The works contemplate energy and environment using layers, transparencies, and a depth of materials. Encaustic waxes combine with transparent oil paints over an underlying support of specifically woven tapestry or interwoven canvas, burlap, or linen. Layers move on and off the surface, in search of a connection between the way that I sense, and the way that I come to understand the natural energies at play in our environments.
Three themes run through this series of works.
Firstly exploring the idea of “landscape” means tracing the boundary where land meets human. Sometimes only a single warm line of containment, like some contemporary reenactment of 17th century enclosures, jealously guards a place of human presence in the immense natural commons of the prairie. Here, between the flatlands and the mountains there is a unique Albertan identity, possibly even pride. Its basis? Simply our existence in this place.
Secondly, accumulated life experience is related to the material meaning of the land. All materials are physically altered by usage and re-usage; their identity can be reinvented, but no matter how strong and redirected is today’s purpose, it cannot completely obliterate the previous lives of the object. This accumulation of identities lives like a surface patina where layers of meanings can be read.
And finally there is that slightly contradictory place where clearly remembered experience meets vaguely remembered fact. Remember that day, the one down at the river? The sky was everywhere sunshine, the landscape was immensely wide open, and the river was huge. Priority of memory trumps the geometry of Euclid. The afternoon went on forever, and yet took no time at all; at once solitary and completely engrossing. This doubleness of vision is more the embodiment of a realist’s mindset, than an impossible contradiction.
In my work, I hide things in plain sight. I look to art to be both intelligent and insightful, but also to be accessible. Somewhere within a work that might seem “all spelled out”, I attempt to place a softly spoken something-else, a murmured voice from the back of the room, to raise the suspicion that there may be an intent here that is not immediately identifiable. An unexpected depth; an unexpected connection; that is something I can say that I am excited about.
These are the ways that Beneath the Long Grass: The Constructed Canvas examines what lies beneath my conscious awareness of the land and moreover, what lies beneath a whole romantic conception of nature. Here is the mindset of a realist, existing in a world filled with energies, both physical and contemplative. Human and natural forces meet with both challenge and synergy and are planted firmly together in the enduring prairie landscape.
Exhibition - Description
Beneath the Long Grass embodies the mass and the meaning of the land in a series of material laden artifacts. Although there is a clear consistency in style and form, the pieces explore a wide range of both size and scope. From the focused 12x12inch found-lumber panels up to the range-of-vision encompassing canvases of 5x6 feet, the pieces challenge the imagination with their variety of purely physical size. The underlying depth of materials in the constructed canvases combine with the imagery to also challenge the intellect: the clearly evident constructions provide an acute awareness of what lies beneath.
A minimalist layout is juxtaposed with the deeply textured, material laden works, in the bright open space of the tower gallery giving impetus for deeper contemplation of the wide open spaces of the Leighton Art Centre environs. The 27-piece installation fills the 654 running feet of the Tower Gallery. Here, one example of the few statement words to be included on the “gallery card” for mounting beside each work:
Unlocked, 2013
Bitumen on Waxed Constructed Canvas
An energy, massive but contained
Energy unlocked, like a tricky puzzle,
Wrangled, not fully tamed
but not completely unleashed.
This series projects the mindset of a realist in a world filled with energies, both physical and contemplative. Where human and natural forces meet there shall be both challenge and synergy planted firmly together in the enduring prairie landscape.
“There was nothing but land: not a country at all, but the material out of which countries are made.” WillaCather, MyAntonia, 1918.
From The ReSourced Series
In the ReSourced Series, I was thinking of an energy, massive but contained. An energy unlocked, like a tricky puzzle. Wrangled, not fully tamed but not completely unleashed.
From The ReSourced Series
In the ReSourced Series, I was thinking of an energy, massive but contained. An energy unlocked, like a tricky puzzle. Wrangled, not fully tamed but not completely unleashed.
That would be those it protects.
From The ReSourced Series
In the ReSourced Series, I was thinking of an energy, massive but contained. An energy unlocked, like a tricky puzzle. Wrangled, not fully tamed but not completely unleashed.
All we can do is watch
From the ReSourced Series - In the ReSourced Series, I was thinking of an energy, massive but contained. An energy unlocked, like a tricky puzzle. Wrangled, not fully tamed but not completely unleashed.
From the ReSourced Series - In the ReSourced Series, I was thinking of an energy, massive but contained. An energy unlocked, like a tricky puzzle. Wrangled, not fully tamed but not completely unleashed.
There is a force that makes them move.
The driven and the drivers
Harvesting that what they need.
From the ReSourced Series - In the ReSourced Series, I was thinking of an energy, massive but contained. An energy unlocked, like a tricky puzzle. Wrangled, not fully tamed but not completely unleashed.
There is a force that makes them move.
The driven and the drivers
Harvesting that what they need.
From the ReSourced Series - In the ReSourced Series, I was thinking of an energy, massive but contained. An energy unlocked, like a tricky puzzle. Wrangled, not fully tamed but not completely unleashed.
There is a force that makes them move.
The driven and the drivers
Harvesting that what they need.
From the ReSourced Series - In the ReSourced Series, I was thinking of an energy, massive but contained. An energy unlocked, like a tricky puzzle. Wrangled, not fully tamed but not completely unleashed.
There is a force that makes them move.
The driven and the drivers
Harvesting that what they need.
From the ReSourced Series - In the ReSourced Series, I was thinking of an energy, massive but contained. An energy unlocked, like a tricky puzzle. Wrangled, not fully tamed but not completely unleashed.
There is a force that makes them move.
The driven and the drivers
Harvesting that what they need.
From the ReSourced Series - In the ReSourced Series, I was thinking of an energy, massive but contained. An energy unlocked, like a tricky puzzle. Wrangled, not fully tamed but not completely unleashed.
From the ReSourced Series - In the ReSourced Series, I was thinking of an energy, massive but contained. An energy unlocked, like a tricky puzzle. Wrangled, not fully tamed but not completely unleashed.
From the ReSourced Series - In the ReSourced Series, I was thinking of an energy, massive but contained. An energy unlocked, like a tricky puzzle. Wrangled, not fully tamed but not completely unleashed.
Foreboding shadows lengthen, stretching that line
The one between needed precipitation and destruction
However, the alternative is dust.
From the ReSourced Series - In the ReSourced Series, I was thinking of an energy, massive but contained. An energy unlocked, like a tricky puzzle. Wrangled, not fully tamed but not completely unleashed.
The Island/Westwind pairing
speaks of a prevailing wind;
and not necessarily meaning
an air movement
in a specific direction.
This landscape speaks,
not of a place but a time;
of global uncertainty,
questioning previously unshakeable ground
that we once thought we stood upon,
when we stood upon the earth.
The sky was everywhere sunshine,
the landscape was immensely wide open,
and the river was Huge.
The afternoon went on forever,
and yet took no time at all.
The vivid colours of childhood
meet vague but ever-present
Calgary colours of Buckskin and Blue.
Scale conforms to the priority of memory
rather than the geometry of Euclid.
Clearly remembered experience
meets vaguely remembered fact.
Solitary and completely engrossing
this small huge world that I survey
thin,
distinct,
a single warm trace of human activity
At this time of year
frigid brittle asphalt
is a welcome sign.
If you can see the yellow line,
you're probably going to make it
to your distant warm, safe destination.
If not...
Here,
between the flatlands and the mountains
a unique Albertan identity,
possibly even pride.
Its basis,simply our existence in this place.
The mass and the meaning of the land
in a material laden artifact.
Accumulated interwoven layers
secured to the cherry panel with
encaustic medium and oil paint.
A mindset of a realist in
a world filled with energies,
both physical and contemplative.
Where human and natural forces meet
there shall be challenge and synergy
all planted firmly together
in the enduring prairie landscape,
12x11inches
From art school artist statement.....
I hide things in plain sight. -
My goal, if anything is to create a scenario
where something does seem to have been made
with a specific purpose;
something that seems like it is all spelled out.
But somewhere within the work I attempt to place
a softly spoken something-else,
a murmured voice from the back of the room,
to raise the suspicion that there may be
an intent here that is not immediately identifiable.
An unexpected depth;
an unexpected connection;
that is something I can say that I am excited about.
Layers, transparencies, and a depth of materials.
Encaustic waxes combine with transparent oil paints.
An underlying support of canvas, burlap, and linen interwoven through the work.
Gradually layers move on and off the surface,
In search of a connection between
the way that I sense, and
the way that I come to understand
the natural energies at play in our environments.
Abstracted use of material in layers.
Active grounds interwoven between
surface and substrate.
Centered on a suggestion of landscape or environment
A codependent interchange of energy
between material layers and surface imagery.