REBECCA ANWEILER

Passing Through

David Kaye Gallery, April 7- 30, 2017

The source imagery for this series was a sequence of un-composed photos I took as a back-seat passenger on a family road trip in St. John’s, Newfoundland in the Summer of 2015. We travelled extensively in this way so my sister could see the landscape she had limited access to in her wheelchair. On this drive through the rain, drizzle and fog-soaked landscape from Cape Spear down into the city’s harbour, a non-majestic view flashed by with limited distinctions in a blue- and green-grey palette.
This work reflects on both still photography and landscape painting in a day and age when our only relationship to much of what we see is the view from a moving vehicle or screen. Short tough Spruce skids by in blurry images from the countryside as it transforms though more and more development heading into the city. Soon the beginnings of human construction and consumption appear and the edge of suburban interventions starts to dispel the greenery. Finally, warehouses for storage of all that comes through the busy port unfold before docks, ships and cranes come to dominate the view.
With a nod to the diffuse and contemplative landscapes of Gerhardt Richter and early April Gornik, this series is about how paintings allow the opportunity to slow down – and where movement, change and letting go in relation to an experience of the environment, and life, is still beautiful when shrouded in rain, drizzle, and fog.