This exhibition emphasizes the power and diversity of Canadian artists’ interpretations of the landscape. Their mediations include the almost mystical post-Impressionist vision of the wilderness associated with the Group of Seven and their contemporary David Milne. The selection encompasses both works on paper and canvases, highlighting several artworks on display for the first time in years.
This grouping is considered against large paintings by John Hartman, whose compositions continue the awe-inspiring qualities of his predecessors’ approach while inserting his own remembrances and stories into his bold, bird’s-eye-view panoramas. Sighting Land also displays responses to nature made by regional painters including Roly Fenwick and Clark MacDougall.
The stances of these artists differ, spanning Realism and Expressionism, to a blend of hot colour and heavy outline that brings Pop Art into the equation. Fenwick’s recent statement may best sum up their inspiration. He describes the challenge in his work being not in describing scenery but “probing to reveal the forces beneath the veneer.”