On the prairie the view through the car windshield often reveals a never-ending roadway. Landscape painting in Canada has frequently been dominated by work less rooted in human geography; exploring the wilderness and generally downplaying or naturalizing the human reconstruction of the Canadian prairies. The body of work featured in the exhibition ‘Shifting Grid’ started with a series of landscapes, the ‘Dashcam’ paintings. The roadway is central in these artworks, placing the viewer on a constructed path. As the work progressed, I was also drawn to places where more organic backroads and prairie trails intersect with the grid often following along streams, riverbeds and glacial pathways. The ‘Skyhawk’ series explores a wider view of the prairie landscape as seen from above. This viewpoint reveals the patchwork grid, a geometric system of organization imposed upon the land. This collision of the carefully surveyed grid system and the reality of geography seems an apt metaphor for the complex implications we currently face in our interaction with the landscape. ‘Shifting Grid’ highlights the aesthetic interplay of the grid roadway system with the organic contours of the land, as a way of considering themes around land use and the role we play in the constantly changing geography of the prairie landscape.
