Landwash: Contemporary Newfoundland Art

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Will Gill "Cape Spear"

Will Gill "Cape Spear" video still

Jordan Bennett | David Blackwood | Will Gill | Growing Up, Up in Cove Collective | Christine Koch | The Shed Collective

Landwash: “The sea-shore between high and low tide marks, washed by the sea; occasionally the shore of a pond or river; foreshore.” Dictionary of Newfoundland English

The stark and fearsomely dramatic etchings by one of Newfoundland’s most famous artists, David Blackwood, conjure a vision of Newfoundland’s seagoing people risking life and limb to wrestle a living from an often cruelly beautiful ocean.

Alberta native and long-time Newfoundlander Christine Koch’s Bonne Bay nocturnes likewise paint mysterious and glorious views of the landwash, but with a more entranced eye.

The Abbie Table Project collective (Growing Up, Up in Cove) is headed by CodCo star, writer and performer Andy Jones with artist Peter Brecken, and is an engaging and colourful illustration of the life and times of Abbie Ellis Whiffen, and his family in the salt fishery of the 1920s to 1950s. The Dark Night of the Ugly Stick features one of Newfoundland’s most distinctive buildings, the ‘shed,’ and a moving animation of a solitary fisherman within.

Mi'kmaq artist Jordan Bennett’s sculpture and paintings vividly convey the creative intersection of contemporary life with his Mi'kmaq heritage, and Will Gill’s two video works, Cape Spear and Firefly, show magical light animating the distinctive land and sea of Newfoundland.

Prints by David Blackwood courtesy of the University of Alberta Art Collection and the University of Lethbridge Art Collection.