Curator: David Diviney
Calgary-based artist Jason de Haan approaches his practice with a sense of time wrapped in memory, mythology, fantasy, and romance. His works seem as though they were rediscovered in some dusty attic or arcane museum collection—quiet gestures forgotten long ago. They seem to come from a past in which people imagined a future that hasn’t yet been realized.
His Salt Beards (2009-13) appear as curious icons roused from a deep slumber, dreamers from another place in history. Pie Powder (2010) — a corruption of the French pied poudre (dusty feet) —suggests a form of wandering in a weathered piano that stands as the sole evidence of an epic journey. In Future Age (2013) a gold ring is placed upon the branch of a living tree. Will the branch break free from its shackle, be strangled to death, or swallow the object, incorporating it into its own natural growth rings?
Jason de Haan develops ideas around themes of what could be and what might not be. He adapts, expands, and then collapses models of space and time. The resulting works are quietly understated, potent, poignant, and poetic.
Jason de Haan’s work has been shown in exhibitions across Canada and internationally in the United States, Ireland, Mexico, Sweden, Iceland, and the United Kingdom. He completed a BFA from the Alberta College of Art and Design (Calgary, AB) and recently began his MFA studies at Bard College (Annandale-on-Hudson, NY). He was shortlisted for the 2012 Sobey Art Award, representing the Prairies and the North.
Noghwhere Bodili is Everywhere Goostly is accompanied by a publication produced in partnership with the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Southern Alberta Art Gallery, and Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery, and through the generous financial support of the Royal Bank of Canada.
