Paper Gardens

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Fiona Ackerman, "Physis," 2016

oil on canvas, 66" x 66"

In 1916, the Group of Seven’s J.E.H. MacDonald painted The Tangled Garden, which shows bending, swaying sunflowers rising from an overgrown, brightly coloured garden in his backyard at a rural property north of Toronto. The painting now enjoys iconic status although many critics disliked it at the time, one derisively calling it “a huge tomato salad.”

Now, for a tomato salad of a different sort, fast forward a century and examine Glasslands, a series of paintings by Vancouver-based artist Fiona Ackerman. Part of a group show, Summer Breaks, on view at Vancouver’s Gallery Jones until Sept. 1, her paintings are almost contemporary, semi-abstracted versions of The Tangled Garden.

Like MacDonald, ex-Montrealer Ackerman nurtures her own, but very different, gardens. Her tangled plants tend to have sharp edges. Macdonald’s edges are softer with Art Nouveau echoes. But both resemble snapshots of lush fantasy worlds.

Ackerman begins with a box, open at one end, that’s built from one-foot-long mirrored tiles. She makes paper cutouts that resemble leaves and hangs them inside the box. Some of the paper creations bend and sway like MacDonald’s sunflowers, although Ackerman says she was unfamiliar with this century-old painting.

She then photographs the box at different angles, the mirrors causing some leaves to be reflected repeatedly. The resulting images serve as her guide.

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Fiona Ackerman, "The Promise of More," 2016

acrylic and oil on canvas, 60" x 75"

The work springs from French philosopher Michel Foucault’s theory of heterotopia, a place that reflects something real, but simultaneously, its opposite.

Gardens are a perfect example of heterotopia, says Ackerman, who was on the long list for the prestigious Sobey Art Award in 2015.

“A garden, when you look at it, is a reflection of the natural world,” she says. “But it is also the opposite because it’s not wild. It’s very curated, it’s enhanced. It’s an edited version.”

Ackerman applied the heterotopia theory in earlier paintings of artists’ studios that she altered so they were simultaneously something else.

Ackerman’s Glasslands paintings share the stage at Gallery Jones with work by Jeff Depner, Paul Morstad, Otto Rogers, Tricia Cline and Brad Howe. ■

Summer Breaks is on view at Gallery Jones in Vancouver from July 7 to Sept. 1, 2018.