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Factory
Located in Montreal, Quebec
For the exhibition Panorama of the Anthropocene, Oli Sorenson presents an array of works created in a hybrid style that evokes the square layout of Instagram, the pixelated landscape...
Category

2010s Contemporary Figurative Paintings

Materials

Acrylic, Canvas

Pipeline Spill (Green)
Located in Montreal, Quebec
For the exhibition Panorama of the Anthropocene, Oli Sorenson presents an array of works created in a hybrid style that evokes the square layout of Instagram, the pixelated landscapes of Minecraft and the geometric paintings of Peter Halley. While Halley's paintings refer to philosopher Michel Foucault's panoptic prison cells...
Category

2010s Contemporary Figurative Paintings

Materials

Acrylic, Canvas

Cargo
Located in Montreal, Quebec
For the exhibition Panorama of the Anthropocene, Oli Sorenson presents an array of works created in a hybrid style that evokes the square layout of Instagram, the pixelated landscapes of Minecraft and the geometric paintings of Peter Halley. While Halley's paintings refer to philosopher Michel...
Category

2010s Contemporary Figurative Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Acrylic

Light Traffic
Located in Montreal, Quebec
For the exhibition Panorama of the Anthropocene, Oli Sorenson presents an array of works created in a hybrid style that evokes the square layout of Instag...
Category

2010s Contemporary Figurative Paintings

Materials

Acrylic, Canvas

Surveillance
Located in Montreal, Quebec
For the exhibition Panorama of the Anthropocene, Oli Sorenson presents an array of works created in a hybrid style that evokes the square layout of Instag...
Category

2010s Contemporary Figurative Paintings

Materials

Acrylic, Canvas

Cloud (Surtsey 1963)
By Robbie Cornelissen
Located in Montreal, Quebec
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” ― Albert Einstein. Always working with graphite and charcoal, Robbie Cornelissen’s limited palette emphasises the stark sombre nature of his metaphysical drawings, The Undertow is his sixth solo exhibition at Art Mûr. At the centre of the exhibition hovers Terra Nova, a dark and desolate world parallel to our own. Robbie Cornelissen’s drawings, such as The Space of Absence and Thriller, seem to pull from the stop motion’s frames. Other images, made especially for The Undertow isolate key fragments; the cloud, mounds and timeless dwellings, Cornelissen’s signature technical interest. In addition to his methodical approach, Cornelissen uses the written word, scrawling and erasing terms repeatedly, in English, French, and German, these fastidious markings and exact translations leave a trace and a glitch on paper and screen. Much of his existing work includes words and phrases like “tribunal,” “myself when I am real” and “the need to disappear.” Do they identify what forms, systems and sentiments that are, or could be present? Or do they warn of what is to come? Suspended in the atmosphere of a planetary body, Cornelissen’s clouds extend down to the surface, looming over Earth and Terra Nova. But are they harmless clouds, or associated with nuclear explosions? And is that the ash, dust, pollution and detritus of these invented places, the remnants of an unsustainable society, a dream factory? Or the promise of life anew? In weather forecasting, or aeromancy, the presence of clouds can promise darkness and gloom, but they can also bring cleansing. The ominous aura of the grid, an applied system and structure used by many, including draughtsmen, architects, urban planners, designers and artists to organise and sometimes classify information, is a recurring element in his work. The grid can be observed from a distant bird’s eye view, or close up, allowing Cornelissen’s large format drawings...
Category

2010s Contemporary Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Pastel, Pencil, Archival Paper

Cloud (Entrance, Bikini Islands 1946)
By Robbie Cornelissen
Located in Montreal, Quebec
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” ― Albert Einstein. Always working with graphite and charcoal, Ro...
Category

2010s Contemporary Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Archival Paper, Pastel, Pencil

Cloud (Angel)
By Robbie Cornelissen
Located in Montreal, Quebec
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” ― Albert Einstein. Always working with graphite and charcoal, Ro...
Category

2010s Contemporary Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Archival Paper, Pastel, Pencil

Cloud (Planet)
By Robbie Cornelissen
Located in Montreal, Quebec
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” ― Albert Einstein. Always working with graphite and charcoal, Ro...
Category

2010s Contemporary Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Pencil, Graphite, Archival Paper

Cloud (Atlantic tropical cyclons 1954-2021)
By Robbie Cornelissen
Located in Montreal, Quebec
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” ― Albert Einstein. Always working with graphite and charcoal, Ro...
Category

2010s Contemporary Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Pencil, Archival Paper, Graphite

Cloud (red)
By Robbie Cornelissen
Located in Montreal, Quebec
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” ― Albert Einstein. Always working with graphite and charcoal, Robbie Cornelissen’s limited palette emphasises the stark sombre nature of his metaphysical drawings, The Undertow is his sixth solo exhibition at Art Mûr. At the centre of the exhibition hovers Terra Nova, a dark and desolate world parallel to our own. Robbie Cornelissen’s drawings, such as The Space of Absence and Thriller, seem to pull from the stop motion’s frames. Other images, made especially for The Undertow isolate key fragments; the cloud, mounds and timeless dwellings, Cornelissen’s signature technical interest. In addition to his methodical approach, Cornelissen uses the written word, scrawling and erasing terms repeatedly, in English, French, and German, these fastidious markings and exact translations leave a trace and a glitch on paper and screen. Much of his existing work includes words and phrases like “tribunal,” “myself when I am real” and “the need to disappear.” Do they identify what forms, systems and sentiments that are, or could be present? Or do they warn of what is to come? Suspended in the atmosphere of a planetary body, Cornelissen’s clouds extend down to the surface, looming over Earth and Terra Nova. But are they harmless clouds, or associated with nuclear explosions? And is that the ash, dust, pollution and detritus of these invented places, the remnants of an unsustainable society, a dream factory? Or the promise of life anew? In weather forecasting, or aeromancy, the presence of clouds can promise darkness and gloom, but they can also bring cleansing. The ominous aura of the grid, an applied system and structure used by many, including draughtsmen, architects, urban planners, designers and artists to organise and sometimes classify information, is a recurring element in his work. The grid can be observed from a distant bird’s eye view, or close up, allowing Cornelissen’s large format drawings...
Category

2010s Contemporary Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Archival Paper, Graphite, Pencil

Places (2)
By Robbie Cornelissen
Located in Montreal, Quebec
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” ― Albert Einstein. Always working with graphite and charcoal, Ro...
Category

2010s Contemporary Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Archival Paper, Graphite, Pencil

Places (1)
By Robbie Cornelissen
Located in Montreal, Quebec
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” ― Albert Einstein. Always working with graphite and charcoal, Robbie Cornelissen’s limited palette emphasises the stark sombre nature of his metaphysical drawings, The Undertow is his sixth solo exhibition at Art Mûr. At the centre of the exhibition hovers Terra Nova, a dark and desolate world parallel to our own. Robbie Cornelissen’s drawings, such as The Space of Absence and Thriller, seem to pull from the stop motion’s frames. Other images, made especially for The Undertow isolate key fragments; the cloud, mounds and timeless dwellings, Cornelissen’s signature technical interest. In addition to his methodical approach, Cornelissen uses the written word, scrawling and erasing terms repeatedly, in English, French, and German, these fastidious markings and exact translations leave a trace and a glitch on paper and screen. Much of his existing work includes words and phrases like “tribunal,” “myself when I am real” and “the need to disappear.” Do they identify what forms, systems and sentiments that are, or could be present? Or do they warn of what is to come? Suspended in the atmosphere of a planetary body, Cornelissen’s clouds extend down to the surface, looming over Earth and Terra Nova. But are they harmless clouds, or associated with nuclear explosions? And is that the ash, dust, pollution and detritus of these invented places, the remnants of an unsustainable society, a dream factory? Or the promise of life anew? In weather forecasting, or aeromancy, the presence of clouds can promise darkness and gloom, but they can also bring cleansing. The ominous aura of the grid, an applied system and structure used by many, including draughtsmen, architects, urban planners, designers and artists to organise and sometimes classify information, is a recurring element in his work. The grid can be observed from a distant bird’s eye view, or close up, allowing Cornelissen’s large format drawings...
Category

2010s Contemporary Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Pencil, Graphite, Archival Paper

Places (Underworld)
By Robbie Cornelissen
Located in Montreal, Quebec
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” ― Albert Einstein. Always working with graphite and charcoal, Robbie Cornelissen’s limited palette emphasises the stark sombre nature of his metaphysical drawings, The Undertow is his sixth solo exhibition at Art Mûr. At the centre of the exhibition hovers Terra Nova, a dark and desolate world parallel to our own. Robbie Cornelissen’s drawings, such as The Space of Absence and Thriller, seem to pull from the stop motion’s frames. Other images, made especially for The Undertow isolate key fragments; the cloud, mounds and timeless dwellings, Cornelissen’s signature technical interest. In addition to his methodical approach, Cornelissen uses the written word, scrawling and erasing terms repeatedly, in English, French, and German, these fastidious markings and exact translations leave a trace and a glitch on paper and screen. Much of his existing work includes words and phrases like “tribunal,” “myself when I am real” and “the need to disappear.” Do they identify what forms, systems and sentiments that are, or could be present? Or do they warn of what is to come? Suspended in the atmosphere of a planetary body, Cornelissen’s clouds extend down to the surface, looming over Earth and Terra Nova. But are they harmless clouds, or associated with nuclear explosions? And is that the ash, dust, pollution and detritus of these invented places, the remnants of an unsustainable society, a dream factory? Or the promise of life anew? In weather forecasting, or aeromancy, the presence of clouds can promise darkness and gloom, but they can also bring cleansing. The ominous aura of the grid, an applied system and structure used by many, including draughtsmen, architects, urban planners, designers and artists to organise and sometimes classify information, is a recurring element in his work. The grid can be observed from a distant bird’s eye view, or close up, allowing Cornelissen’s large format drawings...
Category

2010s Contemporary Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Pencil, Archival Paper, Graphite

Places (Horreum)
By Robbie Cornelissen
Located in Montreal, Quebec
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” ― Albert Einstein. Always working with graphite and charcoal, Robbie Cornelissen’s limited palette emphasises the stark sombre nature of his metaphysical drawings, The Undertow is his sixth solo exhibition at Art Mûr. At the centre of the exhibition hovers Terra Nova, a dark and desolate world parallel to our own. Robbie Cornelissen’s drawings, such as The Space of Absence and Thriller, seem to pull from the stop motion’s frames. Other images, made especially for The Undertow isolate key fragments; the cloud, mounds and timeless dwellings, Cornelissen’s signature technical interest. In addition to his methodical approach, Cornelissen uses the written word, scrawling and erasing terms repeatedly, in English, French, and German, these fastidious markings and exact translations leave a trace and a glitch on paper and screen. Much of his existing work includes words and phrases like “tribunal,” “myself when I am real” and “the need to disappear.” Do they identify what forms, systems and sentiments that are, or could be present? Or do they warn of what is to come? Suspended in the atmosphere of a planetary body, Cornelissen’s clouds extend down to the surface, looming over Earth and Terra Nova. But are they harmless clouds, or associated with nuclear explosions? And is that the ash, dust, pollution and detritus of these invented places, the remnants of an unsustainable society, a dream factory? Or the promise of life anew? In weather forecasting, or aeromancy, the presence of clouds can promise darkness and gloom, but they can also bring cleansing. The ominous aura of the grid, an applied system and structure used by many, including draughtsmen, architects, urban planners, designers and artists to organise and sometimes classify information, is a recurring element in his work. The grid can be observed from a distant bird’s eye view, or close up, allowing Cornelissen’s large format drawings...
Category

2010s Contemporary Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Pencil, Archival Paper, Graphite

Terra Nova (Space Ship)
By Robbie Cornelissen
Located in Montreal, Quebec
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” ― Albert Einstein. Always working with graphite and charcoal, Robbie Cornelissen’s limited palette emphasises the stark sombre nature of his metaphysical drawings, The Undertow is his sixth solo exhibition at Art Mûr. At the centre of the exhibition hovers Terra Nova...
Category

2010s Contemporary Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Pencil, Graphite, Archival Paper

Terra Nova (The Island)
By Robbie Cornelissen
Located in Montreal, Quebec
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” ― Albert Einstein. Always working with graphite and charcoal, Robbie Cornelissen’s limited palette emphasises the stark sombre nature of his metaphysical drawings, The Undertow is his sixth solo exhibition at Art Mûr. At the centre of the exhibition hovers Terra Nova...
Category

2010s Contemporary Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Pencil, Archival Paper, Graphite

The Space of Absence
By Robbie Cornelissen
Located in Montreal, Quebec
3 sheets of A-4 sized paper. “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” ― Albert Einstein. Always working ...
Category

2010s Contemporary Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Pencil, Graphite, Archival Paper

Four Clouds
By Robbie Cornelissen
Located in Montreal, Quebec
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” ― Albert Einstein. Always working with graphite and charcoal, Ro...
Category

2010s Contemporary Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Pencil, Graphite, Archival Paper

The Space of Absence
By Robbie Cornelissen
Located in Montreal, Quebec
100 sheets of A-4 sized paper. “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” ― Albert Einstein. Always workin...
Category

2010s Contemporary Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Graphite, Archival Paper, Pencil

A Balancing Land
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
A group of figures heads for icy distant mountains. A familiar enough scene of polar explorers hauling their sledges. Yet somehow this does not quite fit the heroic mold. The ice and...
Category

2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

Materials

Oil, Wood Panel

There Remains and Irreducible Parity
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
A group of figures heads for icy distant mountains. A familiar enough scene of polar explorers hauling their sledges. Yet somehow this does not quite fit the heroic mold. The ice and sky are tinged a movie musical pale blue and their gear is a bit too colorful for the era of man-hauling. And then there’s the sled, piled high not with boxes of supplies but with a jumbled heap of antiquities: Greek Athenas, bits of a coliseum, a ship’s great wheel. In Jessica Houston’s collage “The Long Haul,” the explorers drag history itself into the great beyond, their backs turned from their absurd load. But we take in the entire scene. In her suite of works, Over the Edge of the World, Houston uses oil on wood, ink on paper, and collages of found images, many from National Geographic Magazine, to rearrange the evidence – and thus history’s possibilities. Houston joins visual artists such as Judit Hersko, Katja Aglert, and Isaac Julien who have been inspired by the explorers of the past. Like them, she draws, in part, on the singular tradition of polar exploration narratives as well as fictions such as Ursula Le Guin’s “Sur” (1981), a utopian feminist hoax in which a party of South American women reach the South Pole in 1909, two years before the official arrival of European explorers. Le Guin’s explorers do not feel compelled to leave any written record or physical proof of their presence at the South Pole. If Le Guin’s women might have made it, what other traces have been missed? Collage can work alongside alternative history: it interprets, interrupts, and rearranges. It questions the completed whole, instead emphasizing composition and relation. Collage suggests it all might be … otherwise. Houston’s collages flaunt their second nature. Yet what they show remains somehow plausible. You want to believe what you’re beginning to see. In “A life Attuned to Larger Rhythms” Houston grids out rectangles of captured images to overwhelm the eye as the polar environment itself might (whiteout is a paradoxical species of optical overstimulation). Through the strangely ordered confusion of an ice survey grafted atop a chessboard, the mind begins to recognize new connections, emergent shapes: a different future? In “Launching Strategy” a yellow-orange pyramid balances garishly atop a tent. Which came first, the realist tent or the Platonic shape? Can we ever be sure that we’re not already seeing through premade abstractions? Or is it that baggage we’ve been dragging along? In “Architecture of the Anthropocene” and “Red Blood, Red Earth” Houston reroutes visually symbolic through-lines between women and non-European people and the official history in which they appear dimly or not at all. A full-skirted woman holds onto the tether of a kite that seems to pull her upwards towards a weather balloon floating above an Antarctic base’s radio tower; a row of tropical workers wielding pickaxes folds into the trajectory of a sailor aiming a bow and arrow at an iceberg stained with red. These are not people or images normally associated with polar discovery. But shouldn’t they matter? “Territory Over Land” strips in a scene from a painted depiction of the tropics, possibly from one of Captain James Cook’s circumnavigations. “Captain Cook’s Legacy” more directly confronts an official portrait of Cook with the torn-in eyes from what can only be described as the explorer’s anonymous dark Other. The hybrid portrait is a kind of contact zone. “Henson and Peary – Past Entanglements” is a cooler, less volatile twin portrait of disputed discoverer of the North Pole Robert Peary...
Category

2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

Materials

Oil, Wood Panel

Inextricably Linked
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
A group of figures heads for icy distant mountains. A familiar enough scene of polar explorers hauling their sledges. Yet somehow this does not quite fit the heroic mold. The ice and...
Category

2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

Materials

Oil, Wood Panel

Around Us and Within Us
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
A group of figures heads for icy distant mountains. A familiar enough scene of polar explorers hauling their sledges. Yet somehow this does not quite fit the heroic mold. The ice and...
Category

2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

Materials

Oil, Wood Panel

Holding Up and Attracting the Earth
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
A group of figures heads for icy distant mountains. A familiar enough scene of polar explorers hauling their sledges. Yet somehow this does not quite fit the heroic mold. The ice and...
Category

2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

Materials

Oil, Wood Panel

Action Which Enables Us to Project Our Forces Into the Outside World
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
A group of figures heads for icy distant mountains. A familiar enough scene of polar explorers hauling their sledges. Yet somehow this does not quite fit the heroic mold. The ice and...
Category

2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

Materials

Oil, Wood Panel

Between Them
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
A group of figures heads for icy distant mountains. A familiar enough scene of polar explorers hauling their sledges. Yet somehow this does not quite fit the heroic mold. The ice and...
Category

2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

Materials

Oil, Wood Panel

If the Two Realities Are Thus Brought Together
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
A group of figures heads for icy distant mountains. A familiar enough scene of polar explorers hauling their sledges. Yet somehow this does not quite fit the heroic mold. The ice and...
Category

2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

Materials

Oil, Wood Panel

Polar Opposites and Complementary Relationship
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
A group of figures heads for icy distant mountains. A familiar enough scene of polar explorers hauling their sledges. Yet somehow this does not quite fit the heroic mold. The ice and...
Category

2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

Materials

Oil, Wood Panel

The Impossible Abyss Which Separates the Two Sides
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
A group of figures heads for icy distant mountains. A familiar enough scene of polar explorers hauling their sledges. Yet somehow this does not quite fit the heroic mold. The ice and...
Category

2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

Materials

Oil, Wood Panel

Of a Difference in Which the Differences Are Inseparable
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
A group of figures heads for icy distant mountains. A familiar enough scene of polar explorers hauling their sledges. Yet somehow this does not quite fit the heroic mold. The ice and...
Category

2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

Materials

Oil, Wood Panel

Compass Rose
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
A group of figures heads for icy distant mountains. A familiar enough scene of polar explorers hauling their sledges. Yet somehow this does not quite fit the heroic mold. The ice and...
Category

2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

Materials

Oil, Wood Panel

Both Above and Below
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
A group of figures heads for icy distant mountains. A familiar enough scene of polar explorers hauling their sledges. Yet somehow this does not quite fit the heroic mold. The ice and...
Category

2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

Materials

Oil, Wood Panel

Heart World
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
A group of figures heads for icy distant mountains. A familiar enough scene of polar explorers hauling their sledges. Yet somehow this does not quite fit the heroic mold. The ice and...
Category

2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

Materials

Oil, Wood Panel

The Shadow Economy of Extraction
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
A group of figures heads for icy distant mountains. A familiar enough scene of polar explorers hauling their sledges. Yet somehow this does not quite fit the heroic mold. The ice and...
Category

2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

Materials

Oil, Wood Panel

To Hang In Between
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
A group of figures heads for icy distant mountains. A familiar enough scene of polar explorers hauling their sledges. Yet somehow this does not quite fit the heroic mold. The ice and...
Category

2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

Materials

Oil, Wood Panel

The Sky Was A Doorway
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
A group of figures heads for icy distant mountains. A familiar enough scene of polar explorers hauling their sledges. Yet somehow this does not quite fit the heroic mold. The ice and...
Category

2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

Materials

Oil, Wood Panel

Taking Place
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
A group of figures heads for icy distant mountains. A familiar enough scene of polar explorers hauling their sledges. Yet somehow this does not quite fit the heroic mold. The ice and sky are tinged a movie musical pale blue and their gear is a bit too colorful for the era of man-hauling. And then there’s the sled, piled high not with boxes of supplies but with a jumbled heap of antiquities: Greek Athenas, bits of a coliseum, a ship’s great wheel. In Jessica Houston’s collage “The Long Haul,” the explorers drag history itself into the great beyond, their backs turned from their absurd load. But we take in the entire scene. In her suite of works, Over the Edge of the World, Houston uses oil on wood, ink on paper, and collages of found images, many from National Geographic Magazine, to rearrange the evidence – and thus history’s possibilities. Houston joins visual artists such as Judit Hersko, Katja Aglert, and Isaac Julien who have been inspired by the explorers of the past. Like them, she draws, in part, on the singular tradition of polar exploration narratives as well as fictions such as Ursula Le Guin’s “Sur” (1981), a utopian feminist hoax in which a party of South American women reach the South Pole in 1909, two years before the official arrival of European explorers. Le Guin’s explorers do not feel compelled to leave any written record or physical proof of their presence at the South Pole. If Le Guin’s women might have made it, what other traces have been missed? Collage can work alongside alternative history: it interprets, interrupts, and rearranges. It questions the completed whole, instead emphasizing composition and relation. Collage suggests it all might be … otherwise. Houston’s collages flaunt their second nature. Yet what they show remains somehow plausible. You want to believe what you’re beginning to see. In “A life Attuned to Larger Rhythms” Houston grids out rectangles of captured images to overwhelm the eye as the polar environment itself might (whiteout is a paradoxical species of optical overstimulation). Through the strangely ordered confusion of an ice survey grafted atop a chessboard, the mind begins to recognize new connections, emergent shapes: a different future? In “Launching Strategy” a yellow-orange pyramid balances garishly atop a tent. Which came first, the realist tent or the Platonic shape? Can we ever be sure that we’re not already seeing through premade abstractions? Or is it that baggage we’ve been dragging along? In “Architecture of the Anthropocene” and “Red Blood, Red Earth” Houston reroutes visually symbolic through-lines between women and non-European people and the official history in which they appear dimly or not at all. A full-skirted woman holds onto the tether of a kite that seems to pull her upwards towards a weather balloon floating above an Antarctic base’s radio tower; a row of tropical workers wielding pickaxes folds into the trajectory of a sailor aiming a bow and arrow at an iceberg stained with red. These are not people or images normally associated with polar discovery. But shouldn’t they matter? “Territory Over Land” strips in a scene from a painted depiction of the tropics, possibly from one of Captain James Cook’s circumnavigations. “Captain Cook’s Legacy” more directly confronts an official portrait of Cook with the torn-in eyes from what can only be described as the explorer’s anonymous dark Other. The hybrid portrait is a kind of contact zone. “Henson and Peary – Past Entanglements” is a cooler, less volatile twin portrait of disputed discoverer of the North Pole Robert Peary...
Category

2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

Materials

Ink, Archival Paper

Drawing in Water
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
A group of figures heads for icy distant mountains. A familiar enough scene of polar explorers hauling their sledges. Yet somehow this does not quite fit the heroic mold. The ice and sky are tinged a movie musical pale blue and their gear is a bit too colorful for the era of man-hauling. And then there’s the sled, piled high not with boxes of supplies but with a jumbled heap of antiquities: Greek Athenas, bits of a coliseum, a ship’s great wheel. In Jessica Houston’s collage “The Long Haul,” the explorers drag history itself into the great beyond, their backs turned from their absurd load. But we take in the entire scene. In her suite of works, Over the Edge of the World, Houston uses oil on wood, ink on paper, and collages of found images, many from National Geographic Magazine, to rearrange the evidence – and thus history’s possibilities. Houston joins visual artists such as Judit Hersko, Katja Aglert, and Isaac Julien who have been inspired by the explorers of the past. Like them, she draws, in part, on the singular tradition of polar exploration narratives as well as fictions such as Ursula Le Guin’s “Sur” (1981), a utopian feminist hoax in which a party of South American women reach the South Pole in 1909, two years before the official arrival of European explorers. Le Guin’s explorers do not feel compelled to leave any written record or physical proof of their presence at the South Pole. If Le Guin’s women might have made it, what other traces have been missed? Collage can work alongside alternative history: it interprets, interrupts, and rearranges. It questions the completed whole, instead emphasizing composition and relation. Collage suggests it all might be … otherwise. Houston’s collages flaunt their second nature. Yet what they show remains somehow plausible. You want to believe what you’re beginning to see. In “A life Attuned to Larger Rhythms” Houston grids out rectangles of captured images to overwhelm the eye as the polar environment itself might (whiteout is a paradoxical species of optical overstimulation). Through the strangely ordered confusion of an ice survey grafted atop a chessboard, the mind begins to recognize new connections, emergent shapes: a different future? In “Launching Strategy” a yellow-orange pyramid balances garishly atop a tent. Which came first, the realist tent or the Platonic shape? Can we ever be sure that we’re not already seeing through premade abstractions? Or is it that baggage we’ve been dragging along? In “Architecture of the Anthropocene” and “Red Blood, Red Earth” Houston reroutes visually symbolic through-lines between women and non-European people and the official history in which they appear dimly or not at all. A full-skirted woman holds onto the tether of a kite that seems to pull her upwards towards a weather balloon floating above an Antarctic base’s radio tower; a row of tropical workers wielding pickaxes folds into the trajectory of a sailor aiming a bow and arrow at an iceberg stained with red. These are not people or images normally associated with polar discovery. But shouldn’t they matter? “Territory Over Land” strips in a scene from a painted depiction of the tropics, possibly from one of Captain James Cook’s circumnavigations. “Captain Cook’s Legacy” more directly confronts an official portrait of Cook with the torn-in eyes from what can only be described as the explorer’s anonymous dark Other. The hybrid portrait is a kind of contact zone. “Henson and Peary – Past Entanglements” is a cooler, less volatile twin portrait of disputed discoverer of the North Pole Robert Peary...
Category

2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

Materials

Ink, Archival Paper

Footprints
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
A group of figures heads for icy distant mountains. A familiar enough scene of polar explorers hauling their sledges. Yet somehow this does not quite fit the heroic mold. The ice and...
Category

2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

Materials

Ink, Archival Paper

The Fatigue of the Conquest
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
A group of figures heads for icy distant mountains. A familiar enough scene of polar explorers hauling their sledges. Yet somehow this does not quite fit the heroic mold. The ice and sky are tinged a movie musical pale blue and their gear is a bit too colorful for the era of man-hauling. And then there’s the sled, piled high not with boxes of supplies but with a jumbled heap of antiquities: Greek Athenas, bits of a coliseum, a ship’s great wheel. In Jessica Houston’s collage “The Long Haul,” the explorers drag history itself into the great beyond, their backs turned from their absurd load. But we take in the entire scene. In her suite of works, Over the Edge of the World, Houston uses oil on wood, ink on paper, and collages of found images, many from National Geographic Magazine, to rearrange the evidence – and thus history’s possibilities. Houston joins visual artists such as Judit Hersko, Katja Aglert, and Isaac Julien who have been inspired by the explorers of the past. Like them, she draws, in part, on the singular tradition of polar exploration narratives as well as fictions such as Ursula Le Guin’s “Sur” (1981), a utopian feminist hoax in which a party of South American women reach the South Pole in 1909, two years before the official arrival of European explorers. Le Guin’s explorers do not feel compelled to leave any written record or physical proof of their presence at the South Pole. If Le Guin’s women might have made it, what other traces have been missed? Collage can work alongside alternative history: it interprets, interrupts, and rearranges. It questions the completed whole, instead emphasizing composition and relation. Collage suggests it all might be … otherwise. Houston’s collages flaunt their second nature. Yet what they show remains somehow plausible. You want to believe what you’re beginning to see. In “A life Attuned to Larger Rhythms” Houston grids out rectangles of captured images to overwhelm the eye as the polar environment itself might (whiteout is a paradoxical species of optical overstimulation). Through the strangely ordered confusion of an ice survey grafted atop a chessboard, the mind begins to recognize new connections, emergent shapes: a different future? In “Launching Strategy” a yellow-orange pyramid balances garishly atop a tent. Which came first, the realist tent or the Platonic shape? Can we ever be sure that we’re not already seeing through premade abstractions? Or is it that baggage we’ve been dragging along? In “Architecture of the Anthropocene” and “Red Blood, Red Earth” Houston reroutes visually symbolic through-lines between women and non-European people and the official history in which they appear dimly or not at all. A full-skirted woman holds onto the tether of a kite that seems to pull her upwards towards a weather balloon floating above an Antarctic base’s radio tower; a row of tropical workers wielding pickaxes folds into the trajectory of a sailor aiming a bow and arrow at an iceberg stained with red. These are not people or images normally associated with polar discovery. But shouldn’t they matter? “Territory Over Land” strips in a scene from a painted depiction of the tropics, possibly from one of Captain James Cook’s circumnavigations. “Captain Cook’s Legacy” more directly confronts an official portrait of Cook with the torn-in eyes from what can only be described as the explorer’s anonymous dark Other. The hybrid portrait is a kind of contact zone. “Henson and Peary – Past Entanglements” is a cooler, less volatile twin portrait of disputed discoverer of the North Pole Robert Peary...
Category

2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

Materials

Ink, Archival Paper

Of the return voyage...
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
“Of the return voyage there is nothing to tell… In 1912 all the world learned that the brave Norwegian Amundsen had reached the South Pole; and then, much l...
Category

2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

Materials

Oil, Wood Panel

The nine of us worked things out...
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
A group of figures heads for icy distant mountains. A familiar enough scene of polar explorers hauling their sledges. Yet somehow this does not quite fit the heroic mold. The ice and...
Category

2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

Materials

Oil, Wood Panel

We were sledgehaulers
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
A group of figures heads for icy distant mountains. A familiar enough scene of polar explorers hauling their sledges. Yet somehow this does not quite fit the heroic mold. The ice and...
Category

2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

Materials

Oil, Wood Panel

She dug out one more cell...
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
“She dug out one more cell just under the ice surface, leaving nearly a transparent sheet of ice like a greenhouse roof; and there, alone, she worked at sculptures...
Category

2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

Materials

Oil, Wood Panel

The steam from our own small funnel
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
A group of figures heads for icy distant mountains. A familiar enough scene of polar explorers hauling their sledges. Yet somehow this does not quite fit the heroic mold. The ice and...
Category

2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

Materials

Oil, Wood Panel

Eight Adélie Penguins...
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
“Eight Adélie Penguins immediately came to greet us … They insisted on us going to visit Hut Point, where the large structure built by Captain Scott’s pa...
Category

2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

Materials

Oil, Wood Panel

instead of a narrow bight...
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
A group of figures heads for icy distant mountains. A familiar enough scene of polar explorers hauling their sledges. Yet somehow this does not quite fit the heroic mold. The ice and...
Category

2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

Materials

Oil, Wood Panel

we came in sight of the Barrier...
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
A group of figures heads for icy distant mountains. A familiar enough scene of polar explorers hauling their sledges. Yet somehow this does not quite fit the heroic mold. The ice and...
Category

2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

Materials

Oil, Wood Panel

The little Yelcho
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
A group of figures heads for icy distant mountains. A familiar enough scene of polar explorers hauling their sledges. Yet somehow this does not quite fit the heroic mold. The ice and...
Category

2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

Materials

Oil, Wood Panel

When I was little more...
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
“When I was little more than a child my imagination was caught by a newspaper account of the voyage of the Belgica…” Over the Edge of the World locates itself in the entangled lega...
Category

2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

Materials

Oil, Wood Panel

…last Thule of the South
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
"…last Thule of the South, which lies on our maps and globes like a white cloud, a void, fringed here and there with scraps of coastline, dubious capes, suppositious islands, headlan...
Category

2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

Materials

Oil, Wood Panel

A summary report...
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
“A SUMMARY REPORT OF THE YELCHO EXPEDITION TO THE ANTARCTIC, 1909-1910. Although I have no intention of publishing this report, I think it would be nice if a grandchild of mine, or somebody’s grandchild, happened to find it some day; so I shall keep it in the leather trunk in the attic, along with Rosita’s christening dress and Juanito’s silver rattle and my wedding shoes...
Category

2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

Materials

Oil, Wood Panel

But then, the backside...
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
“But then, the backside of heroism is often rather sad; women and servants know that …But the achievement is smaller than men think. What is large is the sky, the earth, the sea, the...
Category

2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

Materials

Oil, Wood Panel

Exposed as our camp...
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
“Exposed as our camp was to every wind, we built no rigid structures above ground. We set up tents to shelter in while we dug a series of cubicles in the ice itself.” Over the Edge ...
Category

2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

Materials

Oil, Wood Panel

The Second Flight
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
A group of figures heads for icy distant mountains. A familiar enough scene of polar explorers hauling their sledges. Yet somehow this does not quite fit the heroic mold. The ice and...
Category

2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

Materials

Archival Paper, Magazine Paper

They Surveyed the Mountain Peak as a Philosophical
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
A group of figures heads for icy distant mountains. A familiar enough scene of polar explorers hauling their sledges. Yet somehow this does not quite fit the heroic mold. The ice and...
Category

2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

Materials

Archival Paper, Magazine Paper

Aerial Exploration
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
A group of figures heads for icy distant mountains. A familiar enough scene of polar explorers hauling their sledges. Yet somehow this does not quite fit the heroic mold. The ice and...
Category

2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

Materials

Archival Paper, Magazine Paper

Launching Strategy
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
A group of figures heads for icy distant mountains. A familiar enough scene of polar explorers hauling their sledges. Yet somehow this does not quite fit the heroic mold. The ice and...
Category

2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

Materials

Archival Paper, Magazine Paper

Into Mystery Land
By Jessica Houston
Located in Montreal, Quebec
A group of figures heads for icy distant mountains. A familiar enough scene of polar explorers hauling their sledges. Yet somehow this does not quite fit the heroic mold. The ice and...
Category

2010s Contemporary Mixed Media

Materials

Archival Paper, Magazine Paper

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