MASTER OF DISASTER
Artist ‘hacks’ old paintings
A few years ago, Ottawa artist Marc Adornato scoured thrift stores, flea markets and even online ads for antique frames that he would reuse to frame his own works.
Often the recovery process involved throwing out the old paintings that had been framed, but had become damaged or even mouldy over time. Among Adornato’s finds were a few “vintage, kitschy, Bob Ross-style landscape paintings,” the 40-year-old Ottawa native says.
“I did find a couple that were really in excellent condition.”
It took one epiphany in early 2016 to make Adornato realize that he could “hack” his finds into new art that was more in line with his own esthetic. For Adornato, artworks are a vehicle for making pointed social and political critiques.
Inspired by environmental fallout of incidents in Canada such as the Lac-Mégantic rail disaster in the summer of 2013, Adornato began painting people in HazMat suits and other signifiers of toxic degradation, such as rolled-over trucks, derailed trains and grounded oil tankers, into the found paintings. Within six months, he had created 30 of them, and his series, called Ruined Landscapes, debuted in the summer for 2016 at the Ottawa Art Gallery.
Thursday, works from the series find a new and appropriate temporary home, at the Diefenbunker Museum in Carp, where they’ll be shown until mid-July.
Adornato says that the Diefenbunker, the decommissioned military facility built to shelter Cold War politicians had the conflict had turned nuclear, contacted him about his work.
“I’ve got the dystopian theme through all of my artwork, and when they (museum staff ) saw the gas masks and that kind of scorched-earth (look of the paintings), they thought it would be a good fit, and so did I, to be honest.”
The Diefenbunker “is a dark place, and the artwork is also dark, so they kind of complement each other,” Adornato says.
The Diefenbunker’s exhibit consists of about 15 paintings. Some were painted for the OAG exhibit. Then, Adornato “pounded out” enough works that he could show them off, floor to ceiling, at the gallery, giving his exhibit more heft through size and repetition.
Each of the paintings takes its title from a headline about a toxic Canadian accident. One is called Companies Illegally Dumped Toxic Fracking Chemicals in Dawson Creek Water Treatment Systems At Least Twice, Officials Report #2.
Another is called Mercury levels still rising near Grassy Narrows First Nation.
Since the 2016 exhibit, Adornato has painted about 20 more works in his series.
“Every time another headline comes out, I feel like I have to make another painting,” he says.
Of the 50 or so paintings in the series, about 30 have been sold for as much as $3,000.
The City of Ottawa even bought one of the Ruined Landscapes paintings for its collection.
At the Diefenbunker exhibit, Adornato will also launch a coffeetable book of his series, 24 pages long and in full colour, which he’ll sell for $10.