Bret Parenteau: Whitesand Stream

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Bret Parenteau, “Whitesand Stream,” 2025

photo collage, 22" x 17," (courtesy of Bret Parenteau)

Opening Reception: Saturday, March 29, 1-3 PM

Bret Parenteau’s Whitesand Stream is a record of the artist’s consideration of the local topography, channeled through a synthesis of sound and video composed from regional field recordings, tape loops, synth work, and video documentation. As an artist living in Winnipeg, Parenteau visualizes connections to land and nature through experimental and improvisational audio and visual mediums. This solo exhibition bridges the geographies of Treaty 1 and Treaty 4, guided by the titular Whitesand River—a natural conduit that mirrors Parenteau’s own artistic practice: interconnected, while constantly shifting and evolving.

The works in Whitesand Stream emerge from Parenteau’s research into the Yorkton region’s ecology, informed by geological surveys and climatic studies of the area. Field recordings—captured along ditches, sloughs and riverbanks, under expansive prairie skies, and beneath forest canopies—are fragmented and reorganized through tape manipulation and noise techniques, transforming raw environmental data into intuitive landscapes. Whitesand Stream is an invitation to inhabit the liminal space between documentation and abstraction, offering Yorkton audiences a reflection of their own environment, refracted through Parenteau's lens.

GDAG gratefully acknowledges the support of our funders: Canada Council for the Arts, SK Arts, the City of Yorkton, Sask Culture, Sask Lotteries, Painted Hand Development Corp., Yorkton and District Community Foundation, and Heritage Canada.