March 1 – 31, 2007
Diane Farris Gallery, Vancouver
 

Press release

A bush pilot for 30 years, Canadian artist Judith Currelly is inspired by the aerial perspective of northern British Columbia, the Yukon and Nunavut. Her elegant and serene oil paintings pay tribute to the dynamic relationships of living systems – from the tiniest ecosystems to the vast and intricate interplay of air, land, water and living creatures.

A new sense of human interaction with the land emerges in Journeys. While bodies of water, land formations, grazing animals and birds abound, Currelly achieves a fresh perspective through the placement of human silhouettes in the landscape. The topological features are further enhanced by hand-written text and thereby gain a powerful sense of narrative. The serene paintings encourage contemplation on our relationship with the land, on our experience and knowledge of it, and on our desire to create images of it. For example, To Know a Mountain uses script-like text, contour maps and a figure standing on the skyline to represent different ways of knowing the land.

The artist writes, “Several of the new paintings include a simple silhouette of a person. It usually appeared just when I thought the painting was finished. I found it intrusive and visually jarring at first. Now, if I remove the figure, the painting seems incomplete. Landscape changes dramatically when even the suggestion of a human figure is added. It puts us in the picture and all that implies. I find this intriguing.”

Artist statement

Several of the new paintings include a simple silhouette of a person. It usually appeared just when I thought the painting was finished and I found it intrusive and visually jarring at first. Now, if I remove the figure, the painting seems incomplete. Landscape changes dramatically when even the suggestion of a human figure is added. It puts us in the picture and all that implies. I find this intriguing…

I’ve used script in many of the paintings. It’s not used to describe or explain anything but rather as a visual reminder of the need to describe, explain and understand.

The painting To Know a Mountain uses script, contour maps and a figure standing on the skyline to represent different ways of knowing the land.

Journal: Baffin Island to Yukon is based on a daily journal I kept on a solo flight from Iqualuit to Whitehorse in 1992. The panels represent the pages of the journal and each page represents a day of the journey.The written words, originally used to describe and record the experience have become an integral part of the visual images they evoke.

Judith Currelly, February 2007