About the Series…
On the prairie the view through the car windshield often reveals a never-ending roadway. Landscape painting in Canada has frequently been dominated by work less rooted in human geography; exploring the wilderness and generally downplaying or naturalizing the human reconstruction of the Canadian prairies. The body of work featured in the exhibition ‘Above Below’ started with a series of landscapes, the ‘Dashcam’ paintings. The roadway is central in these artworks, placing the viewer on a constructed path. As the work progressed, I was also drawn to places where more organic backroads and prairie trails intersect with the grid often following along streams, riverbeds and glacial pathways. The ‘Skyhawk’ series explores a wider view of the prairie landscape as seen from above. This viewpoint reveals the patchwork grid, a geometric system of organization imposed upon the land. This collision of the carefully surveyed grid system and the reality of geography seems an apt metaphor for the complex implications we currently face in our interaction with the landscape. ‘Shifting Grid’ highlights the aesthetic interplay of the grid roadway system with the organic contours of the land, as a way of considering themes around land use and the role we play in the constantly changing geography of the prairie landscape.
The view of the prairie landscape from above is a series of disappearing lines, created by the grid road system bordering the strong patterns created by human passage through the landscape. The light and clouds move across the land breaking up the geometry and revealing small counterpoints of habitat and housing. Throughout the year the terrain shifts with the cycles of agricultural activity. Large tracks of land in south and central Saskatchewan have been reformatted by monoculture but more diverse plants and grasses still remain in small areas like the valleys left by the passage of glaciers and waterways. Viewed from above there are islands of marshland, coolies, groves of trees and shelterbelts; like a strange code dotting the terraformed landscape. Below we move through a more contained landscape.
When I was a kid, we made frequent trips on the grid to visit my Grandparents, my Dad would challenge us to be the first to see the town elevator; reward a Nickel. Depending on which backroad we took you could usually see it from about 10km away. Now I find myself looking for different signposts along the way. The micro habitats left along the roadway, slough and poplar grove. A row of evergreens planted along the road into a farmyard. I find I now experience even more of a sense of isolation on the grid roads as more and more home quarters are abandoned or serve merely as installation points for grain and equipment storage. On the backroads there is often dust in the distance, indicated an approaching vehicle, this is always an event as you slow down to save your windshield from the spray of stones, the gravel that coats the roadway. This ritual has become more infrequent over the passing years. My passage through the roadways built along the grid has an edge of nostalgia built on secondary memories of rural life gathered from family and wider oral story collection. This emotional response to the landscape shifts with complexity in the aerial views. When I view the terrain from the above I feel pushed past reminiscence to reflect on land use and the every changing geography of the prairies. Both experiences act as testimony to the history of land use in Canada. To paint these views from Above and below is to act as a witness to the blend of the manufactured and the natural in the prairie landscape.
The process of viewing the landscape from above and below gives us the opportunity to consider both historic and contemporary land use. I feel that the process I am using to create my landscapes mimics my complex feelings about this human interaction with the land; applying layers of sculptural paint, carving, and sanding to rework the wooden surface of my panels. I feel like my colour palette and the shift between loose paint application and small precise details captures the very evocative experience I have observing my habitat. Pushing between abstraction and the real, trying to explore the impact of human intervention on the land.
- Heather Cline
Landscape painting in Canada has frequently been dominated by work less rooted in human geography; exploring the wilderness and generally downplaying the human reconstruction of the western prairies. John Prine was whispering in my ear as I started the dashcam series, placing the roadway firmly in the center of these artworks. Casting the viewer as the main character in a journey through the landscape altered by but not contained by human intervention. The works vary in size, exploring how shifting scale contributes to the visual impact. All the works feature acrylic paint layered on panel.
The series uses multiple layers of paint, often combined with carving and sanding, reworking the surface, literally reconstructing the landscape. I hope that this process of building up the surface of the artwork translates into how people experience the paintings, as the layers and shifts in the surface texture slowly are revealed over a longer period of contemplation. As the work progressed, I started to remove certain elements concentrating on placing the carefully delineated structure of the roads and signage in contrast with the loose dense painting of the landscape. Emulating some of the inherent contradictions in human interaction with our environment.
I strive for these works to be emotive paintings, rooted in physical journey but trying to build on the poetic nature of simple life experience. Geography as metaphor, with the acknowledged influence of the many writers, musicians and artists who have explored the rich terrain of our passage through the landscape.
And then in the spring of 2020 journeys suddenly became infrequent, as we all grappled with the necessary changes created by the COVID 19 pandemic. As the weeks of reduced city traffic continued, I started to observe changes in my environment. Local wildlife started to openly dominate my surroundings, brazenly travelling the local roadways and freely carousing throughout the neighbourhood. I started to ponder the importance of animals as portents in classic stories, religion and literature. The result is a body of work entitled Neighbours.
This is a series of block-prints that feature the animal visitors that I observed from my studio. It is a playful attempt to cast the animals in the role of portents, the imagery is simple and generally open ended. The work was created in the context of our current situation of a world-wide pandemic and on-going environmental crisis. I believe that the animals provide a moment of hope and perhaps wisdom in their ready adaptation and celebration of freedom in the midst of human crisis. Their behavior, perhaps, showing us all a pathway forward.