Working with a 4x5” large-format film camera, artist Andreas Rutkauskas has been documenting the regeneration following wildfires in the Southern Interior of British Columbia since 2017. Initially prompted by the question of what the aftermath of a wildfire looked like firsthand, his understanding of the importance of fire on the land has been dramatically enhanced through this creative visual research.

For his installation, Rutkauskas selected components from original photographs made with his camera at four sites that burned on unceded Syilx territory between 2015 and 2020. Focusing exclusively on the trunks of charred Ponderosa and Lodgepole pine gave the viewer an opportunity to witness the process of regeneration from recently burned forest through varying degrees of succession. The source photographs were made between two months and three years following each fire’s occurrence.

While full-colour images were adhered to the back wall of the window space, silhouettes of other burned trees from around the Okanagan, also generated from his photographic archive, were presented as translucent vinyl cut-outs on the glass itself. Creating a sense of depth within the gallery space, his goal is to simulate the experience of standing in a forest. His technique takes its cues from the art of diorama construction, and other practices of illusion dating back to a time before photography.

After the Fire aimed to provide an alternative viewpoint to the sensationalist aesthetic of wildfire in popular media. The Okanagan is a fire-adapted ecosystem, and the Syilx maintained a balance between ecological processes and human influence through the practice of cultural burning. Rutkauskas hoped that the work could act as a conduit for discussions between various stakeholders on how we can live cooperatively with fire into the future.

Andreas Rutkauskas was born in Winnipeg (Treaty 1 territory, the ancestral and traditional homeland of Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples, and the homeland of the Métis Nation) and currently resides on the unceded traditional territory of the Syilx (Okanagan Valley, British Columbia). 

His projects involve photography and video, often focusing on landscapes that have undergone changes due to a range of technologies; examples include surveillance along the Canada/U.S. border, cycles of industrialization & deindustrialization in Canada’s oil patch, and most recently, the aftermath and regeneration following wildfires in Western Canada.

Rutkauskas was the inaugural recipient of a residency with the Fondation Grantham pour l’art et l’environnement in 2020. In 2018, he was a Research Fellow with the Canadian Photography Institute, and he was a finalist for the Gabriele Basilico International Prize in Architecture and Landscape in 2016. His work has been exhibited in artist-run centres, public art galleries and museums across Canada, as well as internationally.

For more information about Rutkauskas and his work, visit his website.

Breath: the air is taken into or expelled from the lungs. 

Hansen’s artistic focus over the last few years explores the interconnectedness of all life forms on our planet. Whether it is comparing fungi to coral or creating new biomorphic forms, her encaustic sculptures will seem familiar to the viewer. 

This encaustic installation, entirely constructed from natural materials, considers the carbon cycle and the impact humanity is having upon it in the epoch of Anthropocene. Above all else humans require oxygen to live, to breathe, to take that single life-giving breath. And with an exhale we nourish that which keeps us alive. Take a deep breath and consider… 

The ocean and its plant life account for over half of the planet's oxygen production and absorb nearly one-third of the carbon dioxide generated from burning fossil fuels. Climate change and oceanic warming are resulting in the destruction of sensitive ecosystems integral to keeping the carbon cycle in balance.  

Coral reefs and kelp forests teem with colourful life, all living symbiotically and keeping the carbon cycle in equilibrium; but this coral reef lacks colour as it is symbolic of a bleached and dying ecosystem due to human activities, the husks and shells of the dead are all that remain. 

So, take a deep breath, and consider… 

Angela Hansen is a Lake Country-based artist and art instructor. She completed her BDes at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design and her BEd from the University of Victoria. Angela creates primarily with encaustics, a beeswax-based painting and sculpting medium. Angela has worked with encaustic for over 20 years; its versatility of applications drives her art-making practice of both 2D and 3D works. She is inspired by forms found in the natural world, the human psyche, memory formation, and, more recently, a growing interest in ecological and environmental art practices as a factor in cultural transformations. Her recent works, a series of small wall-sculpture studies made of encaustic, natural tissue, twine and string, are inspired by Earth’s flora, and micro-fauna. She calls these biomorphic designs “Organimorphs”, as they look biologic, yet not recognizable as any particular one thing. 

For more information or to see more of her work, please visit angelahansenart.com, or follow her at @angelahansenart.

Patty Leinemann’s practice is filled with questions and uncertainty. When she creates artwork, Leinemann aims to bring a muddled mental idea into a physical form. Each step of her artistic process confronts this notion: beginning with the material used, through to the final composition. The stress and anxiety that inevitably comes with not knowing is in itself integral to the production of Leinemann’s completed art piece. Her process is exemplified by Socrates’ words: “I know that I know nothing.”

This past year the unknowing in Leinemann's life was exacerbated far beyond the imaginable. She knows she doesn't even have to ask you, the viewer, if you can relate. The litany of unknowns continues for us all.

The turbulent experience of dealing with a parent in long-term care was her nemesis. What is yours? Leinemann dedicates this installation to all who are struggling. Know that you are not alone.

Leinemann was also onsite to interact and manipulate a series of objects while focusing on the study of epistemology. Contemplating the theory of knowledge as a daily practice, she hoped to gain insights to the challenges we are sorting through. Leinemann was on location daily from noon until 1:00 pm, Tuesday through Saturday, March 26 to May 8th 2021.