Tracey Bryant and Rhonda Harder-Epp, Covered Ground: Landscapes and Lichen

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Rhonda Harder Epp, "Lichen in White - 1,” 2015

paper on foam core, 47" diameter (courtesy the artist)

Tracey Bryant and Rhonda Harder-Epp, Covered Ground: Landscapes and Lichen

This two person exhibition presents visual artists from NWT and Alberta whose diverse perspectives and art mediums find creative inspiration in the rich elements of the northern landscape and the microscopic world of lichen. The participating artists examine the subtlety of colors and the infinite variety of textures and surfaces through the exploration of two distinct artistic processes.

Tracy Bryant works in encaustic and acrylic painting. Encaustic painting is a process involving molten pigmented beeswax applied with heat gun or blowtorch. It has been used since ancient times to preserve, protect and seal. From Greek murals, to Egyptian Fayum mummy portraits, to sealing the hulls of ancient ships, to preserving human remains, encaustic techniques have kept materials intact even after a thousand years. The word encaustic originates from the Greek word enkaustikos which means to burn in; this element of heat is necessary for a painting to be called encaustic. Tracy explains:

As an experimental artist, the art process is very important to me. I regard it as a form of channeling or flow. I am always exploring and seeking new uses of a medium to express how I feel. I love fusing mediums together in a non-traditional way to achieve unexpected results. I finally found a medium that best conveyed the tactile feeling I was trying to capture with my Northern shield work.

Tracy’s style focuses on both the landscape and the microcosmic world of lichen reflected in natural creative patterns found in the sub-arctic flora that exists around her. ​Tracy asserts that:

As an artist, we often work alone; need to self-isolate to delve into the creative works. In my work, particular islands represented were symbolic of places I found solace or felt safe. They now hold alternate metaphoric meaning in a society slowly becoming out of touch, further detached from one another.

Rhonda Harder Epp’s body of work features paper cut and layered to mimic the texture of slow-growing lichen. Contemplating the process of working with paper, Rhonda elaborates:

What also felt right to me was the kind of slow, painstaking, increasingly elaborate work it was to make these lichen pieces. Though not replicating the seriously long time it takes for lichens to grow, I think the pace reflected the environmental reality. Perhaps this was a kind of symbiosis.

Rhonda’s choice of materials began through her experimentation with painting and then her move to working with paper. She states:

I began my lichen obsession/fascination with canvas ready, paint on the pallet. What I wanted to see on my canvas was not happening I started fiddling with paper. I set myself up with a range of lichen colours and also had a variety of white paper. For reasons that cannot entirely be explained, I gravitated exclusively to the whites. I felt that what I was trying to get at - the variation of subtle texture - was served better without colour.

In this exhibition, both Tracy and Rhonda investigate lichen’s intrinsic beauty and the variety of three dimensional forms and colours. The colours found in lichen range from green to brown to russet red. Despite this variety, lichens can be understated additions to tree trunks and rocks, and might be missed at first glance. Indeed, patches of lichen form intricate and colourful worlds that may exist unnoticed within the expanse of northern bush, boreal forest and barren land. Lichen has a quiet exquisiteness and their microscopic forms go beyond their original context. Their numerous shapes are suggestive of landforms, river patterns and cloud formations within the expansive northern landscape.

This complicated organism changes its form based on what is going on around it. It is a kind of organic recording device affected by environmental stresses, changing colour and shape accordingly. They are very sensitive to environmental change and are used as bio indicators for pollutants and climate change. There are at least 20,000 different species of lichen, and they grow across an estimated six per cent of the earth's surface. They are one of the oldest living organisms on the planet able to survive on almost any surface and endure extreme environmental conditions.

Tracy Bryant and Rhonda Harder Epp have done a remarkable job of revealing a hidden world full of natural variations and a shared and symbiotic relationship between colour, repetition, and forms found on the landscape of NWT. They have explored this relationship in their art practices and in their interpretations.

Scott Marsden, Curator of Museum Collections