There is an unfortunate tendency towards thinking that landscape art is somehow about the landscape. Landscape has become a general, shorthand term for a broad range of traditions and genres that employ landscapes as subject matter, as content and as concept. The work of the artists in this exhibition is not that easy, their work is not about the representation of landscape in visual terms, they do not follow any one of several traditions of landscape art, nor is their work tidily viewed as working against any one of these traditions. More informative of their work, rather, is an expansion of our connotation of landscape beyond thinking only of its visual representation.
There is the representation of landscape through other means, other modes of cultural performance. There is landscape as a concrete, geographic reality. There is also landscape as conceptual domain, the matrix of ways in which landscape is though, imagined, positioned. Understood through an expanded definition, landscape becomes a vehicle through which to approach other discussions involving the social, the historical, the cultural, the critical and the fantastic. It is a conveniently malleable beast of burden, a carrier of ideas and ethos, something on which to hang a narrative or graft a transparent agenda. And that is what the artists in this exhibition seem to understand, that landscape is not about where you are looking.
- excerpt from a good a place as any, essay by Christine Sowiak
Katherine Bourke is a photo-based artist currently completing her MFA at the University of Calgary. Katherine has lived in many of Canadas cities including Toronto, Vancouver, and Lethbridge. Her current practice is in part defined by her semi nomadic lifestyle, and the distinct travel possible through the landscapes of these cities.
Tomas Jonsson is an artist, writer, and gallery administrator at Forest City Gallery in London, Ontario. When he finds time to make art, it tends to focus on historical and geographical narratives as seen through the filter of the photograph.
Sara Graham graduated from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in 1997. Since then, Sara has inhabited and exhibited in a number of cities within Canada. Her recent work examines the urban development of suburbs and their surroundings.
Annabelle Dalby is a photo-based artist who lives in London, England. She is currently completing her MA studies at the Royal College of Art. Annabelle‚s practice incorporates found imagery and collections, drawing on photographys inherent notion of loss and death.
Kelly Bushell is a graduate of the Royal College of Art in London, and
resides in London, England. She makes photographic constructions, which
address mankinds heroic and futile quest to understand, replicate and control nature.
Ted Hiebert is a visual artist currently living in Montreal. His work has been shown at artist-run galleries across the country. He is presently pursuing interdisciplinary doctoral studies at Concordia University.
Duncan G. MacKenzie graduated with an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2002. He has also pursued educational training at the University of Calgary and the University of Western Sydney, Nepean.
Mike Paget operates out of South-East Calgary. His BFA is from University of Calgary, and has taken courses at Emmedia and the Banff Centre. Recently he has become interested in film soundtracks from the 80s with a focus on instrumental synthesizers.
IMAGE:
Annabelle DalbyScenes
Some Place Else, 1999
Ilfochrome print mounted on aluminium16 x 16
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