Sky Dome (props, patches, rips, and tears)

May 14 – June 26, 2010
Exhibition

About the Program

Merritt Johnson's new work in Sky Dome (props, patches, rips, and tears) investigates perceptions of division and confluence where land and sky meet. Johnson's work both constructs and dissolves the landscape, concrete and imagined, measuring the absurdity of boundaries, borders and territories. Referencing mapping, her work also surveys sky by layering, revealing and inverting ideas of earth and sky, Johnson reveals information encoded not in GPS systems but in Indigenous knowledge. Marking the land, Johnson traces ghosts in gouache and graphite, tracking the travel of animals, growth of plants, and the flow of wind and water. Johnson purposes new meridians and imaginary cartography into her drawings and paintings that suggest natural systems and rhythms. Symbolic animals depicted in the exhibition become protector and witness to the impacts of the land and resource exploitation. Revealing the broken sky, Johnson's multidisciplinary work seeks to repair it, following the instructions found in the land itself as told by the sky.

Curator

Tania Willard

Artist

Merritt Johnson

Identifier

2010.0514 SKY

Collection

grunt gallery Programming Archive

Location

grunt gallery (second location)
116-350 E. 2nd Ave, Vancouver, BC, Canada, V5T 4R8
Unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ/selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations

In copyright. For uses beyond Fair Dealing, research requests, corrections, takedown requests, or other inquiries, please contact grunt gallery: archives@grunt.ca