10 Figure in a Mountain Landscape (Reprise) with Silke Otto-Knapp

London-based painter Silke Otto-Knapp will lead participants into the landscape around Banff National Park. On arrival at various scenic locations the group will ready themselves, like generations of artists before them and begin to make art. What they see will be shaped by the sun’s position and the weather. Each artist will be reminded of the time contract as the light changes and fades to darkness.

Working plein-air has a long history and first became popular among landscape painters in 17th century Rome and Naples. Since the late 1800s artists have been visiting the Canadian Rockies for the landscape; those visiting include the photographer Mary Schäffer and painters Lawren Harris and John Singer Sargent. Their work is remarkable, but we inhabit a truly different place and time. Glowing screens promising satisfaction hum around us: information and machines travel at lightening speed; we have so many more complex methods of imaging; and the nature these artists once sought out is now disappearing.

Given such shifts, Otto-Knapp will consider each group trip into the wilderness an experiment. How do artists living in this age and working in a variety of media approach the landscape and the notion of plein-air? What processes will they engage? During these expeditions, Otto-Knapp will propose a move away from a purely experiential approach to a conceptual one. Together the group will explore methods and media ranging from water-colour and easel painting to performance and text-based practices.