Bison, of sky blue dropcloth with bubblewrap, headling left Print

Meet the Bison, also described as Buffalo, once found across much of Canada in vast herds, and hunted nearly to extinction in the 1800's, to satisfy the European market for furs. This Bison is a digital image created from an original analogue source, the silhouette of the Bison is cut out of a piece of paper which is laid over a 'dropcloth' background. The dropcloth background is made from the sheets of paper I use to cover my work surface when I paint, and they start out catching drips and spills from other artwork, and eventually become their own works of art. The cutout of the animal, either in negative or positive space, in black or white, is then combined with coloured backgrounds on the flatbed of my scanner, creating ephemeral art that only exists digitally, although it shows traces of it's analogue origins in various ways; where the pieces of paper show space between them, or where the cut edges of the paper are uneven. This series of animal silhouettes began as an exploration of the forms of animals I see in my day to day life on the west coast, or in my childhood growing up in Ontario. As the series develops further, I'm exploring animals that have been important in Canada's development as a nation, either economically or historically or ecologically. The fur trade was partly responsible for Canada being settled by Europeans, and also how the Bison came to be hunted very close to extinction (after millennia of successful population management by Canada's indigenous people). As a person of European ancestry born in Canada I acknowledge my settler privilege, and I undertake to show respect for the beautiful land I'm grateful to inhabit now.