Landscape in Question: Contemporary works selected from recent acquisitions to the Permanent Collection

Selected from recent Permanent Collection acquisitions, these contemporary works by Nova Scotian artists provide a quizzical perspective on the conventions of landscape painting. Gerald Ferguson’s lushly painted views of Nova Scotia are, in fact derived from tourist postcards and turn out to have been painted by another artist altogether, who followed Ferguson’s minimal instructions. Susan McEachern’s intricate mixed-media panels present a narrative of maps, text and photographs layered into rough-hewn wood and plexiglass frames. Wayne Boucher’s large expressionistic canvasses balance precariously between the abstract and the figurative, grappling with the elemental forces of water, earth and air; while Monica Tap’s suite of paintings borrows elements from historic landscape sketches and layers them into a complex dance of calligraphic gestures. Each artist gives us cause to question how we perceive and experience the land, and how it is represented in artistic conventions.