Burning Daylight

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Holly de Moissac, “Pick Up Styx,” 2024

multiple media (courtesy of the Gallery)

Holly de Moissac’s exhibition Burning Daylight reimagines the Art Gallery of St. Albert’s staircase as an in-between space, occupied by fire, where smoldering braziers and wisps of smoke are bathed in orange light. An inner landscape unfolds that maps the desire to make sense of a world that must smolder and transform, seeking adaptation in the face of change. Holly incorporates multiple media into her practice including painting and drawing, printmaking and laser engraving - merging fire with the creative process.

Burning Daylight explores fire as an unshakeable accomplice to human existence. Fire is our constant companion, growing and expanding with human civilization. It has burned with us as we pushed industrialization into overdrive. Together, we have warmed the world. More individually, fire is an analogue for our power and fragility. We speak of our own minds within the framework of fire – feeling sparks, smoke and flames as metaphors for our unsettled internal worlds.

“In too-dry forests, fire deserts are born from successive fires, where time has not allowed for healing and recovery”, Holly says. “Young trees, still cone-less, cannot transfigure fire into life. After a second blaze, the soil is scorched and empty; a desert begins in the midst of the trees. So too for us; resilience is found within an optimal range of struggle—too much and we cannot heal, too little and we stagnate, growing vulnerable to any spark. We feel a lack of time to rebalance, and so too does the forest,“ she adds.

In work that creates space for questions, Holly puts forward a call for reconnection, to understand ourselves as part of the wider world. Burning Daylight seeks a new relationship with our local ecologies, to pursue resilience as a skillset for the future.

Events: In-person tours: November 14 at 6:30 pm, and January 15 at noon

Virtual Tour: November 22 at noon on Facebook Live