The Lay of Your Land

Artist: Nancy Duff

Re: Collect Slash/ Smoulder 

Artist: Wayne Arsenault 

Date: May 8 to 30, 1998 

Open Space presented an two person exhibition of paintings by Vancouver artists. Through painted,photo-base transfer and printed botanical landscapes these artists examined the enculturation of places and objects and their impact on personal histories. 

Nancy Duff's In The Lay of Your Land, Duff investigated intersections of geography, landscape and feminism. Our knowledge is physically located. We hold each other insufficiently in our imaginations. I keep turning up like a bad penny. I worry that I will not recognize you. Our geographies are similarly colonized. Do you notice me? In you I am a foreign body waiting to be expelled. You often mistake me. Is this you or me? Do you need me to remind you who you are? I am waiting for the penny to drop. 

Nancy Duff, Untitled, 1996 

In Re:Collect, Arsenault focused on familial histories that reflect a Canadian diasporic sensibility; those whose existence within their own country is a separate sensibility from their familial origins.

As he explained, "The concerns addressed in my work have included investigations of an Acadian cultural heritage explored through the poetic relationships of particular geographic and domestic codes. It has been my goal as a painter to reinscribe a critical sense of history that is familial and subjective-passed on from generation to generation.

I am producing a new body of work that seeks to bridge the two maritime environments of my father's East Coast heritage and my West Coast upbringing. Raised on the Saanich Peninsula, I am interested in the similarities and differences between these two histories and geographies. How does knowledge of my father's East Coast history inform my experience? Making these connections will reflect aspects of a Canadian diasporic sensibility."

Wayne Arsenault, "Artist's Statement", Open Space Archives, Victoria, B.C. (Box 36, File 1)