Multimedia artist expresses feelings about nature in new Swift Current exhibition
The delicate and often fleeting beauty of nature finds expression in a new collection of works currently on display at the Art Gallery of Swift Current.
The exhibition Flor y Canto (Flower and Song) by photo-based multimedia artist Gabriela Garcia-Luna is an interpretation of her own experience of nature in Saskatchewan and Mexico.
She spoke about her art and the works in this exhibition during an opening reception at the gallery, April 12.
“This is the first time this exhibition is as it is here,” she said. “There are smaller versions of this exhibition or parts of this exhibition have been shown in other places, but many of the pieces that you see here are being exhibited for the first time.”
It is a result of a journey that took her from the prairies to her country of birth, but these works are more than just realistic presentations of flora. It is influenced by her own feelings about what she observed and therefore represents an interpretation of the natural world.
The exhibition is a reflection on how humans interact with the environment and it provides viewers with an opportunity to attach their own interpretation to what they see. She felt these works come to life when somebody else is able to connect to it and relate to it from a deep place.
“For me it’s important that the viewer participates with their own vision, their own emotion and their own feeling,” she said. “I hope the work allows a space for that to happen. I really hope that the work lets people put their own input, like this reminds me when I was in this place and this thing happened, because the work doesn’t exist on the board or on the paper. The work exists when there’s this communication with other and the connection.”
The Saskatoon-based artist was born in Mexico City, but she has been living in Saskatchewan for 15 years.
“As a way to understand the place where I live and to find my own place here, I started just walking on the land and traveling to different places and gathering photographic images,” she recalled. “Many of those explorations I did were along the Saskatchewan River, because I thought the Saskatchewan River is really the main highway and the main source of life of this land. So a way to know the land is to know the river.”
These journeys and explorations of nature gave her new perspectives on the subtle beauty of flora on the prairie. She slowed down and focused her eyes on the small details of the land.
“I found myself adjusting my views to the quietness and the beauty of the prairies, where a small plant or the movement of grass becomes really significant,” she said. “So I started to use those images in order to create new compositions and that’s what originally has been inspiring my work.”
These experiences did not only result in a greater appreciation of her surroundings, but became part of a personal exploration of her place in the world and of where she belongs.
“Nature always gives me that answer,” she said. “I can belong always in nature. I think that connection to nature is something inherent to each one of us. That’s why we respond so strongly to it.”
Garcia-Luna has been focused on her life in Saskatchewan, but the pandemic caused her to start missing Mexico. She therefore went back to the country of her birth to do research about her ancestry.
She also reconnected with nature while she was there and took photographs to record what she saw during excursions.
“Then I brought them back here and then include them in the compositions of my work in a non-linear way,” she recalled. “They started merging with each other in different compositions and giving place to colours that are probably more accentuated than they were before by the influence of the light there or the colours there. I guess all these things coexist within me and it can coexist in my experiences. I think they all have a place.”
The works that emerged from this creative process are on display in the exhibition at the Art Gallery of Swift Current. It therefore also serves as a reflection on how humans develop a sense of place and belonging, and to what an extent nature plays a role in creating a feeling of home and familiarity.
“I believe the merging of the different aspects of our existence individually and collectively make us who we are, and make us the rich and vast space of possibility that we can be,” she said.
She has dedicated this exhibition to her mother, Socorro Rodriguez Pardo, and to Thara Maharaj, a dear friend in Saskatchewan.
“These two women are really very important in my life,” Garcia-Luna said. “They taught me to appreciate the small traces of beauty.”
Photography is the starting point of her approach as a multimedia artist, but through the use of drawing, digital work and printmaking she produces works to reveal the unseen.
“I am mixing different mediums and for me everything comes together organic, similar to what happens in nature,” she said. “Everything has a place there and there’s no straight division between one another.”
The exhibition Flor y Canto (Flower and Song) will be on display at the Art Gallery of Swift Current until June 7. Admission is free and the gallery is open Tuesday to Saturday from noon to 5 p.m.