Convergence: Two Artists Consider Their Landscape

The Peace River Regional District of Northeastern BC can be considered industrially active. This has lead to a redefining of the landscape at an accelerated pace based on the demands of industry and community. The original hills, prairies, and rivers have been modified over time by settlement, agriculture, forestry, and energy development.

Dawson Creek artists Mary Mottishaw and Kit Fast experience this shift first-hand. Their work, individually and collaboratively, maps this progression with contrasting yet compatible styles.

Mottishaw’s pieces include hand-stitched patterns meander across the canvas and fabric mimic walking paths she has visited in the area, translating those paths into traditional prints, and then focusing inward to the figure which walks those paths. The dangling thread ends suggest our sense of often feeling powerless in the face of change. The exuberance of nature and the concept that growth and flexibility are both possible when supported is illustrated through the use of rubber bands. The figures looks forward to the future, assuming the same stance as the viewer.

For Fast, his methods of representation centre on digital photography using landscape portraiture, abstraction and, in most cases, are combined in assemblage sculpture using thread, machinery, glass, and natural elements. His goal is to “create installations/sculptures in which people can recognize their lives/landscape, but are forced to consider a new context for their personal experience and consider forging a new relationship with a place called home.”

To view Mary Mottishaw’s website click here