Jim Kalnin
Not Far From the Tree
July 16 to September 19, 2010

In conjunction with our summer exhibition The Tree: From the Sublime to the Social, local artist Jim Kalnin created a temporary charcoal drawing on the walls of The Front project space. Kalnin’s tree drawing incorporates images from various kinds of human activity, including art, culture, politics and technology. It expresses the view that everything humans have created relies on nature for its existence. Everything on the planet comes from the planet; we are far more connected than we sometimes realize.  

Kalnin used natural charcoal that he made from trees that once grew in his yard in Oyama, B.C. By creating this large ephemeral wall drawing, and by using a medium that has been made from recycled trees, Kalnin is extending the theme of continual change, and the fact that everything in the universe is in constant flux. Nothing, not even art, lasts forever.