carbon study: walking in the dark

Genevieve Robertson
curated by Katie Belcher
12 January to 23 February 2019

OPENING RECEPTION: 11 January 2019 at 7pm

Genevieve Robertson’s forthcoming exhibition consists of large-scale drawings on paper using pigments made with found carbon-based compounds—coal, graphite, and charcoal—collected in southern interior regions of British Columbia where coal and graphite mining are present and forest fires are becoming ever more destructive and widespread. This new series of works on paper records a sustained effort to capture an elemental and lively quality embedded in these fossil and plant-derived materials, drawing on research material of flora and fauna in the carboniferous period. Unified by their simple, figure-ground relationship, the works read like large-scale taxonomic or botanical interpretations.

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Genevieve Robertson is a drawing-based interdisciplinary artist with a background in environmental studies. She holds an MFA from Emily Carr University (2016) and a BFA from NSCAD University (2009). Robertson has exhibited her artwork in venues including the Libby Leshgold Gallery (Vancouver), The Walter Philips Gallery (Banff), The Pensacola Museum (USA), the Nanaimo Art Gallery (Nanaimo), Touchstones Museum (Nelson), Or Gallery (Vancouver), the New Gallery (Calgary) and the James May Gallery (USA). Robertson presently resides in Nelson, B.C. where she serves as Executive Director for Oxygen Arts Centre. Her work is informed by a personal and intergenerational history of resource labour in remote forestry camps on the West Coast of British Columbia