British-Canadian artist Genevieve Robertson presents her first exhibition outside North America at Midlands Arts Centre (MAC). Bringing together drawing, painting, printmaking and video, the exhibition connects two forested landscapes separated by 310 million years and 4,000 miles: the coal-forming swamps that shaped England’s Black Country and a wildfire-affected mountainside in British Columbia. Raised in remote logging and tree-planting camps and having worked in forestry for fifteen years, Robertson’s practice grows from close attention to landscapes. Working with pigments derived from carbon-based materials including coal, wildfire charcoal and plants gathered during field research, she traces carbon’s journey through geological time and its continuing role in shaping contemporary ecological futures.
Image caption:
Genevieve Robertson, Lichen, 2019, found coal (from Elkview Operations, Crowsnest Highway, BC), found graphite (from Eagle Graphite Operations, Slocan Valley, BC) and wildfire-derived charcoal (from Lemon Creek Wildfire site, BC) on rag paper, courtesy the artist