PUBLICATION DESIGN: Michael Belmore | A.J. Casson – Nkweshkdaadiimgak Miinwaa Bakeziibiisan, Confluences and Tributaries, Confluents et Tributaries exhibition catalogue

The exhibition opened October 11, 2018 at the Ottawa Art Gallery as part of the OAG’s series Firestone Reverb. In this exhibition series “contemporary artists are invited to respond to selections drawn from the Firestone Collection of Canadian Art.” The publication also included a beautiful essay by curator Wahsontiio Cross, then OAG’s RBC Emerging Indigenous Curator, now curator at National Gallery of Canada.

As the publication was designed over the duration of the exhibition, I wanted the catalogue to reflect the feeling of being in the exhibition space with Casson’s landscape paintings contained within the frame juxtaposed with the materiality and undulations of Michael’s copper sculptures.

Essay Excerpt:

Both artists, though coming from different cultural and generational backgrounds, share an affinity for nature and a respect for the land which can be expressed in their art-making processes. Both grew up with the land as their teachers: as a child, Casson’s family spent their summers in the Guelph area, where he enjoyed fishing and hunting rabbits; Belmore frequently spends time in the bush and on the water and collects his materials and ideas directly from the land. The landscape surrounding Lake Superior is a place which is integral to his personal and cultural history, as seen in Landing I and Landing II (2008), which features the topography of Lac Des Mille Lacs and Lake of Bays ritualistically hammered out into the copper sheets.

IMAGES: Exhibition images by Julia Martin; all others Leah Snyder