Atlas Findings

Leon Benn, Tessar Lo, Peter Mettler, Paul Wackers, Jacob Whibley & Megan Whitmarsh

April 1 - May 2, 2010

Narwhal Projects is pleased to present Atlas Findings, a group exhibition negotiating new possibilities in modern landscapes. Leon Benn, Jacob Whibley, Megan Whitmarsh, Paul Wackers, Tessar Lo and Peter Mettler offer peripheral views from distant lines, sharing explorations of modern landscapes through painting, collage, embroidery and film. Their constructed environments form six unique visions of the world surrounding us, communicating unique perspectives ranging from joyful optimism, futuristic imaginations, deep introspection, insightful observations and terrifying realities.

Today's landscape serves as a distortion of nature and technology beyond original recognition. As humans we possess the innate need to romanticize nature, to somehow preserve it, save it, call it our own. In the past, the natural world was faithfully recorded, revered and reconstructed with the goal of communicating the sublime. Through the last century this form of landscape depiction has fluctuated in popularity. Paralleling the cultural climate surrounding us, reverence gave way to exploration and discovery, which led to criticism and activism, which in turn led us back to appreciation and new acceptance. We simultaneously embrace the natural world, question our place within it, desperately try to savor it and accept the inevitable destruction brought on by the same hands that so eloquently captured her beauty. The perspectives we take on the environments around us are diverse. We select what we want to focus on, what we want to ignore and what we want to immortalize. With rapid environmental evolutions pushing us forward, pausing to focus, decipher and record constructed landscapes has reached a new level of importance. No longer contained to straightforward interpretations, contemporary landscape artists construct environments both real and imagined allowing our consciousness to rest somewhere between what we know, remember and what may become.

Opening Reception & Signing:
Thurs April 1st
7-10pm
Artists will be in attendance
Runs April 1 - May 2, 2010