Visual Voices 2024: New art exhibit grounds viewers in Senate soil health study
A new environmental art exhibit installed in the Senate of Canada Building is spotlighting the importance of soil health and the completion of a landmark, two-year study on the topic by a committee of Canadian senators.
The exhibit, the second in the Senate’s Visual Voices program, features works by two Canadian artists: Ken van Rees, a longtime soil scientist based in Saskatchewan, and Britt Francis, an award-winning painter from British Columbia who passed away in 2008.
Launched in 2022, Visual Voices is a rotating exhibit of artworks with themes highlighting senators’ work, notably committee studies and reports. The newest installation, located in one of the Senate’s largest committee rooms, calls attention to the in-depth study and report on soil health in Canada by the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry.
Dr. van Rees’s work, Highway 2, literally uses soil as an art medium. Described as a soil rubbing on watercolour paper, it depicts 29 stacked horizontal lines in varying shades of brown.
The Ontario-born artist spent three decades teaching and researching the relationships between soils and trees across different landscapes. He began to experiment with painting after incorporating art into his field courses in northern Saskatchewan, which later inspired him to create pigments from soil.
Through his work, the now-retired artist hopes to present a different perspective of Canada’s natural environments that reflects — in his own words — “the colours, shapes and textures of our northern landscapes.”
Mr. Francis’s Infinite Blue depicts a woman standing in a field of yellow-green grass looking back towards the viewer and framed by rolling hills and blue skies.
Born in Vancouver in 1947, Mr. Francis studied art in Alberta and Mexico. He painted realistic figures and landscapes for many years, before focusing on still life in the magical realism style. The artist primarily worked with watercolours and egg tempera; he was famous for the remarkable play of light and shadow in his ultra-realistic paintings.
The two artworks will be on display in a Senate committee room until May 2025.
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Visual Voices 2024: New art exhibit grounds viewers in Senate soil health study
A new environmental art exhibit installed in the Senate of Canada Building is spotlighting the importance of soil health and the completion of a landmark, two-year study on the topic by a committee of Canadian senators.
The exhibit, the second in the Senate’s Visual Voices program, features works by two Canadian artists: Ken van Rees, a longtime soil scientist based in Saskatchewan, and Britt Francis, an award-winning painter from British Columbia who passed away in 2008.
Launched in 2022, Visual Voices is a rotating exhibit of artworks with themes highlighting senators’ work, notably committee studies and reports. The newest installation, located in one of the Senate’s largest committee rooms, calls attention to the in-depth study and report on soil health in Canada by the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry.
Dr. van Rees’s work, Highway 2, literally uses soil as an art medium. Described as a soil rubbing on watercolour paper, it depicts 29 stacked horizontal lines in varying shades of brown.
The Ontario-born artist spent three decades teaching and researching the relationships between soils and trees across different landscapes. He began to experiment with painting after incorporating art into his field courses in northern Saskatchewan, which later inspired him to create pigments from soil.
Through his work, the now-retired artist hopes to present a different perspective of Canada’s natural environments that reflects — in his own words — “the colours, shapes and textures of our northern landscapes.”
Mr. Francis’s Infinite Blue depicts a woman standing in a field of yellow-green grass looking back towards the viewer and framed by rolling hills and blue skies.
Born in Vancouver in 1947, Mr. Francis studied art in Alberta and Mexico. He painted realistic figures and landscapes for many years, before focusing on still life in the magical realism style. The artist primarily worked with watercolours and egg tempera; he was famous for the remarkable play of light and shadow in his ultra-realistic paintings.
The two artworks will be on display in a Senate committee room until May 2025.