Baie de l'Islet
Project_Eleanor King has referenced dazzle camouflage since 2015. In the solo exhibition Dark Utopian at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia that year, her research brought her to Arthur Lismer's WW1 paintings of dazzle ships in Halifax Harbour. Grappling with how to depict the ocean in her architecturally-scaled wall painting, this historic reference and style of distractive design was a compelling discovery which helped create a lexicon of form for how to map the ever-changing ocean. Her “abstractions” make the survey visible; a colonial practice of dividing land into private ownership and natural resources. For the Symposium, she will focus on abstract landscapes in proximity to Baie-Saint-Paul. A survey of the geography reveals logging impacts, wind power projects, coastline, suburban housing development, and town. This work combines camouflage and patterns found in human infrastructure. Informed by research and site-specificity, this project will evolve over the duration of the Symposium.
Bio_Eleanor King’s projects have been presented in North America, the United Kingdom and Europe, with notable presentations at the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto, Nuit Blanche, Spring/Break Art Show, and Art Gallery of Nova Scotia and others. She has been artist-in-residence at A.I.R. Gallery, MacDowell, Yaddo, SOMA Mexico, The Banff Centre, and Glenfiddich; and supported through the Sobey Art Award, The Canada Council for the Arts, and Arts Nova Scotia. Her work has been featured in Canadian Art, C Magazine and Art in America, and is held in public, private and museum collections. She is a Fulbright Fellow with a BFA from NSCAD University and an MFA from Purchase College SUNY. She is Regular Part-Time faculty at NSCAD and works for the Ecology Action Centre in the unceded Kjipuktuk Mi'kma'ki (Halifax Nova Scotia).
Approach_Eleanor King is an artist and educator whose interdisciplinary practice includes painting, video, sound, and sculptural installation. This work responds to physical, social, and economic landscapes and it is often responsive and collaborative. She frequently uses language to reflect our rapidly changing world. Concerned with the impact capital has on our lands and politics, her work focuses on the impact human-built infrastructure has on the environment through a decolonial lens. Though this research highlights justice issues we all collectively face, she aims to retain a sense of hope through beauty.
