Sun Over Swamp

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Takao Tanabe, “Sun Over Swamp,” 1964

acrylic on paper (collection of Vancouver Art Gallery, Gift of Takao Tanabe)

Opening Reception: FRIDAY, APRIL 26, 7pm

Sun Over Swamp is an exhibition that takes its title from a 1964 painting by Takao Tanabe and features five artists who consider ecology through diverse approaches to abstract painting.

Artists: Rebecca Brewer, Azadeh Elmizadeh, Rita Letendre, Gailan Ngan, and Takao Tanabe.

In Tanabe’s Sun Over Swamp, a brushed yellow rectangle hovers over splashes of ochre and umber and hatches of turquoise and slate. With Tanabe’s title in mind, we can begin to unpack what we are observing beyond composition and colour. The sun and swamp not only balance and reflect each other in this painting, but they are also interrelated ecological forces. Swamps are nourished by the sun and, in turn, trap carbon in living plants, soil, peat, and sediment.

Our bodies also revel in the sun’s energy, and like swamps, they are porous and mostly liquid. We are all viscerally interconnected and dependent on one another for collective care. As individuals and communities we are tied to our place and time, while entwined with an earthly network of beings and ecosystems.  

Sixty years after Tanabe’s painting was made, the intensity of solar radiation and the swamp’s ability to trap carbon are increasingly out of balance. Clear cuts, mines, and pipelines have redrawn the terrain, while our new “fire season” colours the horizon in a gray orange haze, abstracting both the sky and the land.

Working on canvas, linen, wood, and ceramic, artists in Sun Over Swamp reflect on our fragile yet globally interconnected biomes. From tracing the environmental footprint of their materials, to employing storytelling, mythology, artificial intelligence, and embodied learning in their processes; Rebecca Brewer, Azadeh Elmizadeh, Rita Letendre, Gailan Ngan, and Takao Tanabe consider unknowably vast and complex lifeworlds through the practice of abstract painting.

Thinking across shared ecologies, Sun Over Swamp is the first exhibition through which Nanaimo Art Gallery asks the question: How can we work together?

This exhibition is supported by the Coast Bastion Hotel.