Natasha Harvey’s artwork consists of a series of collaged landscape paintings and linocut prints, which seek to represent and communicate the effects of human interference on the environment while evoking the participatory spirit of love and beauty of nature. Harvey spends time deepening her connection with the land in the Syilx peoples' unceded territories, walking and connecting through place-based research. Over time, during these walks, she has found the expansion of dwellings, homes pushing up the mountainsides around and over wetlands, impacting wildlife habitat and ecology. Construction cuts into the land. Culture and economy reshape the horizon, thus rendering 'space' as politically complex. Therefore, achieving the colonial sublime is not a simple image of beauty without erasure. Harvey questions whether her depictions of the landscape illustrate this complexity and thus encourage a conversation about our expanding contribution to the detriment of the land.
The beautiful, wild landscapes of the Group of Seven contribute to the Canadian identity. The most well-known paintings by this group depict a pristine land, devoid of human evidence. This interpretation and representation of landscape omit industry and human interaction. As an artist, Harvey feels an urgency to try to depict a comprehensive version of landscape art in this time of climate crisis and environmental emergency. This version of landscape depiction illustrates a vista that is manipulated and used for human development. It emphasizes land commodification and colonial capitalism to encourage discussion about our impact on natural spaces.
Harvey’s family has a local construction business. They participate in manicuring and manipulating the landscape. Green grass, geometric ponds and infinity pools replace indigenous habitat. Her family’s livelihood comes from the commodification and development of the landscape. At the same time, Harvey observes the detrimental construction management and practices happening in the Okanagan and recognizes her part in it. Harvey’s position within the construction industry is difficult. Her love for the environment and local landscape has always been sincere however she recognizes the paradox.
Juxtaposing images and attempting to combine found materials, photographs and painting techniques is endless play, exploration and discovery; moments of tight and linear alongside messy and chaotic to construct or weave a layered poetic narrative. Collaged layers are built up and create meaning. She intends to illustrate the many contextual layers within a landscape. She uses found construction materials that have been salvaged from worksites encroaching and overtaking the forest trails where she walks. The construction materials are juxtaposed with the photographic images of forests and living things she has documented during such walks. Building her paintings is laborious. It is physical work that mimics the labour involved when constructing a home. The paintings reflect industry with their large scale and overbearing proportion. These constructed landscape paintings are large in scale. It is meant to feel both encompassing and obstructive. A push and pull, as though you could physically enter the landscape however, it may also feel like a barrier. This implied barrier operates when the recognizable elements of the landscape are interrupted with abstraction and collaged found materials. The linocut prints depict a forested wild landscape. The trees illustrated no longer exist, in their place, houses have been built or are in the process of construction. The prints are large and detailed. The process is meticulous, it takes time, love and care. Documenting forests that have been clear-cut through the slow process of relief printmaking is like a memorial of sorts.
Veneration is created to motivate discussion and awareness concerning our impact on ecology. This discourse could potentially encourage choices of care and contingency towards the environment. Rather than seeing the environment as a resource to be used, love and connection could alter this perception from resource to relative, as we are all elemental.
Natasha Harvey’s exhibition Layered Landscapes: Landscape Art, Politics and Love is on view in the Main Gallery from November 3 - December 16, 2023.
Layered Landscapes: Landscape Art, Politics and Love in the Main Gallery, 2023.