Passage
Elizabeth Beauchamp & Lynn Malin

“Let’s cut them up! Cut them all up!”

Sounding, we imagine, like land developers eyeing a pristine river valley, we set about hacking away at perfectly lovely landscape paintings.

“Oooh, this one’s a beauty.”

“Ummhh…Early spring light over the river…Here’s the exacto knife.”

Months of destruction follow…cutting, drawing, rubbing, gridding, oils, pastels, chalk, graphite…and we’re finished.

Exhausted we survey the carnage. “They’re gorgeous.” “Bloody gorgeous.” “Criminally gorgeous.”

“Why is it so seductive…to want to change something that doesn’t need changing…?”

Lynn Malin
Lightscapes

From creating imaginary meridian lines to fencing our yards, we attempt to control and order nature. Over time, these scars and marks can appear as arbitrary as nature itself.

An illuminated mapping of place, space, and time, the lexan sheets refer to space itself, while the marks relate to the natural environment and the process of land use. In this way the paint becomes contextual with perception and the viewer experiences first-hand the dialogue between abstract, imagined and real.

I think of the lexan sheets and the light boxes much as TV, video, movie or computer screens, but containing floating painterly and drawn marks.

Elizabeth Beauchamp
Texting Tom

The shadow of one plastic tree fills a gallery wall, seducing us with its delicacy.

Slowly, we have grown to accept artificiality. A silk flower here, a plastic wedding bower there…110 yards of Astro Turf.

I imagine a day when the river valley trees are plastic, stiff limbed, towering Lego trees planted in rows. Their blocky shadows dominating the pathways, forcing us to walk along in darkness.

And I wonder idly... what would Tom Thomson think of all this? His iconic “Jack Pine” struggled to thrive, growing out of a rock, facing the strong north wind. Surviving everything nature could throw at it.

But nature’s not the problem is it?

“To penetrate the darkness we must summon all the powers of enlightenment that consciousness can offer.” Carl Jung

Elizabeth Beauchamp and Lynn Malin have worked collectively on public sculpture projects and gallery exhibitions for 15 years.

Exhibition Date: November 27 to December 20, 2008
Opening Reception: Thursday, November 27, 7 to 10pm
Artist Talk: Saturday, November 29, 1pm in the Gallery

gallery   daNielle   Andrea Magnuson