Genevieve Robertson: Looking Through a Hole in the Earth

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Blaine Campbell

Genevieve Robertson, "Sandal,"(detail), 2017

bitumen, coal, seawater and gouache on paper, 76.2 x 55.8 cm, Collection of the artist, Photo: Blaine Campbell.

Opening reception on February 6, from 7 to 9 p.m.

Artist talk at the gallery on February 9, starting at 2 p.m.

Looking Through a Hole in the Earth is Genevieve Robertson’s first solo exhibition at a Canadian art museum. An interdisciplinary artist with a background in environmental studies and resource labour, Robertson works with found materials, linking biology, geology and environmental studies with contemporary drawing.

"It’s been four years now since I've been working with found (and sometimes gifted) materials as the basis of my drawing practice — silt, seawater, crude bitumen, found coal, forest-fire derived charcoal, found graphite, lichen, calcium carbonate, algae and plant dyes,” said Robertson. “This work has also been a lens to explore ecological grief, long cycles of life and death through the use of primordial geologic materials and the entanglement of human and more-than-human beings in a time of climate crisis and mass extinction."

Looking Through a Hole in the Earth presents three series of Robertson’s recent explorations: works on paper composed with bitumen and seawater; forest-derived charcoal, coal and graphite; and algae and calcium carbonate.

Robertson’s work will inform the theme of two In the BAG Family Sundays, on February 16 and March 8. Explore the exhibition and then take on family friendly art projects in the gallery studio space. The 90-minute workshops begin at 1 p.m., with the final session starting at 3:30 p.m.