6 February-6 June 2014
David R. Harper: “Entre chien et loup”
David R. Harper is not a collage artist. With a varied practice that hovers between sculpture, installation, and painting, Harper makes art that stitches together nature, humanity, and history. Draw Near the Range Draw Nearer is five projections of mountain landscapes on screens in a line that connects one landscape to the next. He explains, “By creating elaborate objects and situations that combine common and unusual materials and historical techniques, I hope to amplify an ephemeral natural world with enduring monumentalization.” Ann MacDonald from the University of Toronto Scarborough’s Doris McCarthy Gallery curated Harper’s current exhibition on view at the Ottawa Art Gallery. The title of the exhibition is “a multi-layered expression; entre chien et loup [is] used to describe a specific time of day, just before night, when the light is so dim one cannot distinguish a dog from a wolf.” Among the works in the exhibition of particular note to the collage enthusiast, I Tried, and I Tried, and I Tried (II) is a giclée print on canvas of the painting Napoleon Crossing the Alps (1801) by Jacques-Louis David in which Harper has embroidered the horse in a blue isometric cube pattern. The result is something particularly collage-like: the reuse of an image and the use of negative space, history reimagined into a contemporary moment.
This News and Notes item originally appeared in Issue Eight. To see other News and Notes from the world of collage, SUBSCRIBE to Kolaj or PURCHASE ISSUE EIGHT.
INFORMATION
The Ottawa Art Gallery
Arts Court
2 Daly Avenue
Ottawa, Ontario K1N 6E2 Canada
(613) 233-8699
Hours:
Tuesday-Wednesday, 10AM-6PM
Thursday-Friday, 10AM-9PM
Saturday-Sunday, 11AM-6PM
Image:
I Tried, and I Tried, and I Tried (II)
by David R. Harper
64”x54”
giclée print on canvas, cotton embroidery floss
2013
Courtesy of the artist.