Into the Woods: An Icon Revisited

EXHIBITION OVERVIEW

This focused installation positions Tom Thomson's The West Wind (1916-17), along with its oil-on-panel sketch and one of Thomson's earliest major canvases, in a wider social and historical context of Algonquin Park.

The setting is Algonquin Park; the subject is the lone jack pine. For many, the park embodies a “pure” and “untouched” ideal of wilderness, but even in Thomson's time, its landscape had been dramatically reshaped by colonialism, industry and wildlife management. The re-emergence of species and the growing presence of wildlife in suburban and urban areas are challenging contemporary understandings of nature and the wild. The roadkill remains of a fawn represented in Michael Belmore's Breadth reflect this profound encounter between human and animal. The installation's artwork are complemented by a selection of contextual photographs.

This exhibition is included with general admission.

Organized by the Art Gallery of Ontario.