Beyond the Trees: Wallpapers in Dialogue with Emily Carr

Beyond the Trees considers the relationship between painted and digital representations of nature, exploring how they can coexist.

Taking nature as a starting point, both Wallpapers and Emily Carr invite us to reflect on their varied perceptions of the Canadian West Coast landscape, the former via a digital environment of mapped wall projections and the latter by means of painting scenery as it unfolds through nuanced brushstrokes of line and colour. In both, the viewer undergoes a mediated experience of the natural world.

In Wallpapers’ examination, technology produces an environment that both mimics and experiments with the scale and primary forms of nature. These new site-specific works respond to the architecture of two galleries to create contrast from a monumental outdoor environment simulating clouds and rain to more immersive space established through digitalized textures and patterns. In stark contrast, a selection of Emily Carr’s paintings is presented according to her use of formal elements, particularly those of colour, shape, and pattern. The mounted clusters of oil paintings and charcoal works on paper place an emphasis on the movement captured in her landscape imagery.

Wallpaper’s Beyond the Trees is the fifth in a series of In Dialogue with Carr projects organized by the Vancouver Art Gallery. The exhibition is curated by Caitlin Jones, guest curator, and Diana Freundl, assistant curator, Vancouver Art Gallery.