Quick Pick — Rewilding: The Forest Will Forget Us

Lyndal Osborne, John Freeman, Liz Ingram and Bernd Hildebrandt are the artists behind Rewilding: The Forest Will Forget Us, an exhibition on now through Dec. 20 at Vernon Public Art Gallery. Using sculpture, wall text, large-scale photographic prints, a screen with embedded plant forms, video and sound installations, it examines the interactions between people and nature over time, and, in particular, looks at how powerful nature can be. 

According to the gallery statement, the show – which took two years to pull together and is curated by Lubos Culen — “is about the resilience of nature as witnessed in land sited on a boreal forest lake in Alberta.

“In the process they (the artists) acknowledge the many other stories that go back millennia, and which have been shaped by people living and surviving on the land. These legends and beliefs are now re-emerging from oral histories of the original peoples of these lands and help us to shape our common existence within nature.”

Born in Australia, Osborne lives in Edmonton and is a professor emeritus at the University of Alberta. Her work has been shown at Glenbow, Art Gallery of Alberta and Dunlop Art Gallery.

Born in Toronto, Freeman has lived in Edmonton since 1947; he taught art at U of A from 1972 to 2005, and his work is found in public and private collections around the world.

Ingram was born in Argentina but grew up in India and Toronto; she has been a professor at U of A for more than 40 years and is currently the university's Distinguished University Professor Emerita of printmaking and drawing/intermedia.

A sessional instructor in U of A's Art and Design department, Hildebrand has a background in sculpture and industrial and graphic design, as well as museum and art installation. ■

Rewilding: The Forest Will Forget Us, is on now through Dec. 20 at Vernon Public Art Gallery

PS: Worried you missed something? See previous Galleries West stories here or sign up for our free biweekly newsletter.