| Boreal Baroque: Mary Anne Barkhouse - February 9 – April 1, 2009 |
Reception Thursday February 12, 2009 at 7pm
Free Admission, all welcome
installation view with Sovereign, 2007 and The Skins of our Fathers II, 2007
Mary Anne Barkhouse’s work is a visual narrative filled with wild creatures. They serve to transform our ideas of nature and perhaps make us, for the first time, genuinely consider it. Indeed, many of the creatures found in this tableau are experienced by the viewer only through mass media, perhaps a zoo, but rarely in their own habitat. By juxtaposing, as Barkhouse says “the wild with the wildly opulent,” we are asked to think about our historical, as well as our present, relationship with animals. Barkhouse is also keenly interested in concepts of survival, adaptation and evolution in the creatures she continuously observes in their habitat.
The Boreal of the exhibition title refers to the Boreal Forest (which covers much of Canada) while the Baroque references the seventeenth century court of Louis XIV of France. In this, Barkhouse’s most recent installation, the animals have been victorious: they have evicted humans from their “habitat” and converse on the chaise longue and confidante sofas of a Louis XIV setting. They hang from the ceiling in the form of chandeliers and line the walls as tapestries.
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Vesper II, 2007
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Succession, 2007 (red hare detail)
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It is within this context that the inhabitants of the Boreal Forest make their way into our world; Barkhouse asks them to be seen, not as hats or fur coats, but as animals assured of their rightful place in the palace. By creating a bestiary within the specific human context of seventeenth century France, Mary Anne Barkhouse references the past and the abuses and extravagances of humanity as played against the present environmental extravagances that threaten the very existence of its inhabitants. Concepts of survival are pitted against concepts of sovereignty and who, or what, in the end will be left standing. As Barkhouse maintains, by ignoring the micro-ecosystem, we risk our own evolution. There is a dichotomy in how we live our every day lives with animals – they may share space at the foot of our beds, but they are also served at the dining room table. The question is: how are they perceived in the wilderness – or are they perceived at all?
Mary Anne Barkhouse was born in Vancouver and is a member of the Nimpkish band, Kwakiutl First Nation. She is a graduate of the New Media programme at the Ontario College of Art and has worked as an Artist-in Residence in the Metal Studio at Harbourfront Centre in Toronto for two years. Her work has been shown and collected throughout Canada. Barkhouse is a member of the Royal Academy of Art.
This exhibition is organized and circulated by the Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, Ontario and curated by Linda Jansma.
Mary Anne Barkhouse will meet visitors and lead a tour of her exhibition at the opening reception Thursday February 12, 2009 at 7pm. Free admission
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Still Life with Owl, 2007
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The Skins of our Fathers II (vole detail), 2007
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