The outline of an old barn, the silhouette of a child swimming and a foggy landscape are all snapshots of memories Ottawa artist Leslie Reid has captured in her paintings hung on the walls of the Carleton University Art Gallery.
The paintings, which resemble fuzzy photographs, are meant to make audiences reflect on memories, Reid said.
“They’re not meant to be just beautiful, they’re meant to be very questioning,” said Reid as she walked around “A Darkening Vision,” a retrospective of her work from the past 30 years.
Reid and Canadian studies professor Peter Thompson delved deeper into her paintings during a dialogue Sept. 18 at the gallery.
Thompson said Reid’s landscapes are traditional in some ways as they include few people and communicate the vastness of the Canadian landscape. However, he said the emphasis is on psychological response and fear of the landscape rather than the landscape itself, which sets Reid’s paintings apart.
All of the paintings start with photographs, but are not photorealistic, said curator Diana Nemiroff. She said she believes this was an aesthetic decision and that Reid’s focus is on emotion rather than objectivity.
She added that the contortion of the original photographs may comment on memory, as the paintings almost all depict scenery from Calumet Island, Que. where Reid spent time part of her childhood.
Paintings from the three different decades are arranged along their respective walls dealing with either air, land or water. However, the overarching focus is exploring the effects of light and the feelings associated with familiar and unfamiliar landscapes.
The first paintings dealing with air have little definition, using a palette of soft pastel colours.
Reid uses oil and wax to create a darker landscape for the land series. The paintings are still vague and distanced from the viewer, but also communicates the anxiety associated with nature — another of the exhibits themes outlined in the opening panel.
The last wall features a series of newer paintings dealing with water. These are done in oil paint and feature the darkest colours of the exhibit as well as Reid’s children, who are absent from the other paintings.
These newest works of the collection consist of paintings that now hang alongside the oldest ones — tying the two ends of the collection together and a series of videos dealing with Calumet Island and the stories of what Reid encountered in Newfoundland.
The video provides glimpses of the grief felt by a family Reid met traces the steps of the mourners through the scenery.
Overall, the exhibit is about the exploration of complex relationships, Reid said.
“It’s really about using light through our experience of land, air and water to explore our connectedness to the environment, but more importantly to each other and to life itself.”
