Shapes of land and mind

A new installation of contemporary works from the AGO Collection (on Level 4, gallery 405) explores the concept of landscape by highlighting the various forms it takes in painting and sculpture. Adelina Vlas, AGO Associate Curator, Contemporary Art,  has displayed the works of artists Silke Otto-Knapp, Paterson Ewen, Luis Jacob and Shirley Wiitasalo in associative conversations with each other, juxtaposing the nuances of natural, man-made and imagined landscapes. 

Los Angeles-based painter Silke Otto-Knapp is best known for her complex, monochrome works done in grey, black and silver watercolour. Taking a non-traditional approach to the medium, she paints on canvas and linen which adds a signature flatness and luminosity to her paintings. Otto-Knapp’s multi-panel Monotones (Seascape) is part of her Monotones series, and depicts a vast, rocky shoreline on Fogo Island, Newfoundland.        

During the latter part of his career, influential Canadian painter Paterson Ewen (1925-2002) developed a unique technique for creating his works on wood. Using an electric router, he gouged markings in large sheets of plywood, creating a distinct surface on which he would then paint landscapes. Coastal Trip (1974) features three 2 x 8 feet plywood panels, each depicting a different panoramic seaside view, accented with the unique textures of Ewen’s gouge marks and paints.  

Canadian multidisciplinary artist, curator and educator Luis Jacob’s BILTS (1997) is a commentary on the human impact and power dynamics of high-rise architecture. This sculptural work consists of six maple objects, each corresponding to a high-rise office building in Toronto’s financial district. Using an extrapolated version of each building’s floor plan, Jacob crafts elongated, horizontal representations of the skyscrapers, dramatically shifting their sculptural presence. According to Jacob, skyscrapers laying on their sides are “utterly dysfunctional as icons of power.”    

Shirley Wiitasalo is an established Canadian painter known for both her figurative and abstract compositions that explore topics such as the media, urban landscapes and contemporary culture. The two paintings in this installation date to 1978 when she was mostly working in a figurative manner. Desiring and The Shortest Route are companion pieces with one being an enlarged detail of the other. Desiring places at its centre an empty bed surrounded by an imaginary, dream-like landscape that includes an urban built environment, a mountainous range traversed by tunnels and a train wreck.  A road with two cars, one red and one blue, hugs one of the mountain peaks and is the subject of the second painting The Shortest Route. 

Together, these four distinct visions of landscape invite visitors to consider the possibilities afforded by such a rich and multi-faceted subject in contemporary artistic practices. 

This new contemporary installation exploring landscapes is on view now on Level 4 at the AGO. Book your tickets here.