Connections: The Tree of Life and Death

Connections are everywhere, be they symbolic or literal. Every connection has its purpose, from the tiny fibers of an adult human fibroblast cell, which connects (or adheres) to extracellular matrixes, to trees, with their deep roots, connecting themselves to the ground. See, even these two seemingly different objects, with their own unique connections, can also find a way to be connected to each other. A photograph of a network of adult human fibroblast cells looks oddly similar to that of a pink tree (taken by Heather Champ) found in San Francisco, but, where the cells actually help produce more cells, more life, the pink tree is in fact, dead. It can no longer grow or blossom, like the cells in their own way. That does not mean this tree cannot still be admired aesthetically in some way.

An unknown artist, upon hearing of the death of the tree, decided to give it new life by transforming it into a small but significant urban art piece. Though it was taken down not long after, it shows that even when dead, natural objects such as trees can still be used to make beautiful art.

So artists go one step further, and create art long after a tree has been cut down and transformed into a new object; a piece of paper. Artist Emma Taylor creates a series of work called “From Within A Book” where she takes pages of a book and sculpts various scenes, such as a stork carrying a baby or a person reading a book. One work that particularly stands out is that of a large tree, coming out from between two pages. It reminded me of the pink tree, and even of the fibroblast cells.  Like the pink tree, the tree used to make the pages is long dead, but the artist has taken the pages, connecting them together like cells, to create a new tree.

Though not truly living, it is an echo of its former self, and yet, still as beautiful. The tree seems to be one of few natural objects that can be beautiful and inspiring in both life and death.

-Anna Paluch

A Bouquet of Semiotics

Many meanings and hidden symbols are lost to us today. In Victorian times, objects as simple as flowers could mean a whole range of emotions, such as dread, happiness, and bouquets could hold secret messages of unrequited love, or an elaborate (and honestly, gorgeous looking) insult.

Artist Lisa Oppenheim takes this old tradition of coded messages in flowers, and makes her photograms using only the stem and leaves, while shining coloured light, mimicking the petals. The outlines of the stems and leaves can be seen faintly, but what is important here, is the use of colour. Though the actual flower is not present in the image, the colours help mirror the intention; in Regret (Hyacinth) II (2011), the purple helps solve the mystery of what the meaning is. Hyacinth can mean anything from ‘the quality of being faithful’ to ‘beauty’, but it is the purple Hyacinth that specifically means ‘please forgive me’, and thus, the reason also why the image is entitled ‘regret’. Then there is her diptych Perfect Lovers (Tulips) III (2011). The colours give the image a sense of passion, and rightly so, as tulips are a symbol for the declaration of love, and in this case, the two ‘lovers’ are represented, interacting as a diptych.

It is a fun way of playing with these long forgotten signals, and bringing them forth as a new aesthetic. Modern tools, such as flashing lights and cameras, recreate the feelings people would feel from receiving a flower. It seems that with time, the more abstract in image is, the easier it is to understand it.

-Anna Paluch

Landscape Revisited

The ability for people to go into space has opened many doors in terms of exploration and knowledge of the universe, yet it has also given us a chance to look at our Earth from a different perspective.

Col. Chris Hadfield is a Canadian astronaut, currently onboard the International Space Station, who takes pictures of the Earth while on his mission in space. It is a new style of landscape photography. Previously, our only options in terms of ‘landscape’ photography were to take a picture of the Earth, on Earth, or capture the vast expanse of space via astrophotography.

Now, we can take into account the scale of the Earth; how massive desserts are, how tiny cities are. We can see both natural beauty and industrial devastation. His images are reflections of the various societies in this world, and its history. Like all great photographs, they tell stories, either about lost civilizations, daily routines or environmental changes.

Though not everyone can just get into a spaceship and take pictures all day, what Col. Chris Hadfield is doing, is opening doors for future artists, scientists, and explorers, to see the different ways in which we can capture our surroundings, through photography.

-Anna Paluch

Human Webs

The traditional web design is being transformed to create amazing works of art. Artists such as Janet Echelman, Megan Geckler, and Marie-Josée Laframboise take string, netting, tape and various other materials to create their site specific installations that not only transform a room or city, but how we view these materials.

For Echelman, the beginning of her work started in India, when she used fishing net to create a last minute sculpture for her exhibition. The work was a success, and it led her to use lighter materials to create large-scale works in city centers, such as Sydney and Amsterdam. One of her works, 1.26 (2010-ongoing), was created originally in Denver, Colorado, and uses data taken from the 2011 earthquake off the coast of Chile, to ‘sculpt’ her piece in order to look like the wave pattern. It is a mesmerizing display of colour and form.

The work of Megan Geckler, on the other hand, does not move as fluidly as Echelman’s, nor is it as large, but Rewritten by machine on new technology (2012-2013) is still large-scale enough to engulf the viewer into a vortex of colour. Like Echelman, Geckler’s site-specific pieces work with the rooms that they are put in, playing with the architecture.

With Marie-Josée Laframboise, her work seems to be a mixture between the rigid geometry of Geckler’s works and the natural fluidity of Echelman’s works. Her webs are site specific, but there is little rigidity. Instead her work evokes the idea of a wave, engulfing the viewer, or even a web. It is not ominous, but enchanting.

These web-works demonstrate a fresh new take on what we can do with malleable materials, and the results, are truly spectacular.

-Anna Paluch

Galactic Poetry

The downfall of living in an urban center, is that all we get to see during the night are blankets of cloud (possibly smog), and if we’re lucky, a few stars. What artist Sanjeev Sivarulrasa is trying to show in his work, Night Light, is what we are missing out on; a magical world, swimming through space, with galaxies and nebulae bejeweling the cosmos.

It is visual poetry.

The artist uses astrophotography to capture the various forms and colours of the stars and planets outside of an observatory setting. According to journalist Becky Rynor, it is as if he is capturing the great masterpieces that our ancestors would see; a natural art. Space does not have to be sacred scientific ground; it can also be merely another aesthetic aspect of our lives, that inspires people to think about the greater world around us. The simple observer plays as big of a role, as the great scientist. When this right to observe is taken away from us, via artificial city lights, we have to make the effort to go to the sources such as countryside’s, forests, lakes, and mountains. We must go to the nature, to connect back to ancient ideas of aesthetic beauty, and renew the senses. Sanjeev’s astrophotographs are to be seen as meditative, bringing awareness to our daily surroundings, and that sometimes, we need to take a step back, and see the bigger picture.

Night Light is currently exhibited at Karsh-Masson Gallery, until the 5^th of May, 2013, and there will be an artist talk on the 24th of March, 2013

-Anna Paluch

Nouveau Biomorphism

The art of Natasha Mazurka is currently on display at the Ottawa Art Gallery, in the exhibit entitled Natural Motif. Her work mimics that of, not only the Group of Seven, but biomorphic shapes of trees and microbes found in nature, and sometimes in landscape (like the image of the Sundarbans Mangrove Forest, beside the painting of one of Natasha’s works).

Artists such as Natasha, have a whole world of inspiration within the natural world, from which to work from. Twists, curves, spheres, and other shapes are constant reminders of how visual nature is, in terms of our own interpretation. Though usually working on circular canvases, Natasha’s works displayed in Natural Motif are on rectangular canvases, alluding to the connection between her biomorphic shapes, to that of the classical Group of Seven trees, bent and curled due to wind, such as in A.Y. Jackson’s Arctic in the Summer (1961), or Arthur Lismer’s Georgian Bay Pines (1962).

Another inspiration to Natasha’s work, as mentioned during the artist talk for the exhibit, was that of Art Nouveau, which was influenced, at least in decorative terms, by the sudden movement of nature and new biological forms found with the improvement of scientific discovery. The paint on her canvases itself uses rich tones that are often found in Art Nouveau and nature, but with an ombré effect as if the painting is giving off light from the center. As if it was a life-force.

If you would like to see for yourself, the intricate details and natural patterns of Natasha’s work, it will be on display until March 17, 2013.

-Anna Paluch