As people, we may modify and intervene, make a mark or deliver a blow, but we are only a small part in the sequence of what has come before and what will come after. At this overwhelming time of increasingly accelerated societal and climate change, I have appreciated how artist Michael Belmore’s work has us consider glacial speed and the permanence of natural materials. In this consideration, there is transcendence beyond this mere moment. The elements of Earth are resolute and will remain. Belmore’s oeuvre is a contemplative murmuration of this statement of fact.

Working with materials as rigid and challenging as stone and metal, Belmore intimates what they provide for comfort, referencing hearth and home. His work also considers ways of gathering: like a glacial erratic external force may move us to migrate to a different place, far from where we began. Upon arrival we leave our trace in the landscape.

Read full article on National Gallery of Canada Magazine.

IMAGE: Leah Snyder