Derek Liddington | The trees weep, the mountain still, the bodies rust

×

Expand

Derek Liddington, "The trees weep, the mountain still, the bodies rust (detail)," 2022

Musée d'art de Joliette, Photo: Paul Litherland, Courtesy of Musée d'art de Joliette.

Derek Liddington’s exhibition The trees weep, the mountain still, the bodies rust, features a recent body of work that invites the audience to experience the sensorial state of being immersed within a forest. Viewers are compelled to re-examine their perception of and relationship with this natural landscape, and perhaps even better understand their place in an all-encompassing and interconnected world.

“This set of works from Derek Liddington challenges how landscape paintings historically tend to capture nature: as a spectacle that unfolds in front of us and apart from us,” says Anne-Marie St-Jean Aubre. “However, Liddington’s canvases are as dense as the forest. He omits the visual cues that would typically help us situate ourselves relative to the image, such as the horizon line. The end result is an experience that is simultaneously disorienting and fascinating, as the viewer tries to locate themselves spatially and temporally — similar to what happens when one takes a walk in the forest.”

Although based in Toronto, Liddington found inspiration for the works on view while at a residency at Grey Church in Vancouver during the summer of 2019. He began to experiment with landscape painting at this time, confronting the challenge of translating vast expanses of space and distance onto the limits of a canvas. An earlier work by Liddington similarly aimed to capture the physical immediacy of live movement within time and space: the artist would draw on unstretched canvas that covered the body of a performer as they moved underneath it. Liddington continues this exploration with "The trees weep," capturing the fluidity of a forest’s continuous transformation and movement with lush strokes of paint.

This exhibition was originally organized and presented by the Musée d’art de Joliette in Québec, earlier this year. For the iteration at the RAG, Liddington will produce brand new works including a site-specific mural that utilizes Gallery’s unique space and its high ceilings. As visitors move through the gallery to view the mural, they will alternately see the curves of a giant body and the horizon of low-lying hills.

Exhibition Tour with Derek Liddington and Anne-Marie St-Jean Aubre, Curator of ContemporaryArt, Musée d’art de JolietteSaturday, November 19, 1—2 pm:

Join featured artist Derek Liddington and Musée d’art de Joliette’s Contemporary Art Curator Anne-Marie St-Jean Aubre for an informal tour of The trees weep, the mountain still, the body rust. Free drop in, no registration

required. Talk will be followed by the Opening Reception from 2—5 pm with the artist and guest curator inattendance.