Man’s current relationship to the land is complicated, mitigated as it is by the dominance of our species. To encounter untrammeled wilderness is a privileged experience, now few and far between yet the desire to connect with a purer earth is ever present. The artists within ‘Scapes acknowledge man’s presence within the landscape. They approach landscape from different personal perspectives so that the interpretation of the ‘scape is authentic and original.

Collaborating artists Rodney Konopaki and Rhonda Neufeld engage in a direct human involvement with landscape as they create their works together. Over the past nine years, they have been meeting in various locations across Canada to create art. Headbones Gallery is showing their Chatham Spin portfolios, two beautifully bound suites of linocuts each containing eight prints.

Mary Smith McCulloch’s orchards and vineyards have been transformed by the positive facets of her technical expertise. McCulloch’s monoprints exude warm glows of radiating rich tones of light and her colours break apart in places like light being dispersed by a prism so that the lively properties of colour and light become dominant.

For South African born Paul Roux, the sea is his muse and despite his attempts to meliorate the powerful ocean with a couch or two, the vistas overcome our consciousness and also function as a metaphor for the prevailing conceptual separation between 'nature' and 'civilization'.

‘Scapes. They surround us, affect us, we control them and turn to them for a refreshing escape. The landscape tradition with the fine arts has changed, updated. As man has become more invested - arguably imposing - within the landscape, these artists have maintained a respect for the subject that translates into beauty.