Sarah Anne Johnson, Pink Forest, 2015. Courtesy the artist and Stephen Bulger Gallery.
The Canadian Art Foundation’s annual auction takes place during our 20th anniversary Gala on September 17. In anticipation, we asked members of our art-advisory committee to select their favourite works on the auction block. We’ll be publishing their selections from September 8 to 12—our auction preview week, when all of the works will be on view at Waddingtons.
Leslie Gales and David Moos
Sarah Anne Johnson, Pink Forest, 2015.
Over the past decade, Sarah Ann Johnson voyaged to the Galapagos Islands and travelled to Northern Canada to plant trees in industrially devastated land and always observed, photographed and documented her experiences, sometimes making small figurative sculpture. And then she returned to her native Winnipeg to explore her original landscape. But where might the pink forest be, if it exists at all? Hyper-detailed and oddly alive, this altered landscape—like so many of Johnson’s retouched and materially enhanced images—invites consideration of a hypothetical realm. Are these three philosophers seeking to discover the answer to the proverbial “tree falling in the forest…” mystery? Or might this nude troika, inhabiting a pink-ified world, summon the essence of General Idea, the famed artists blithely walking into their ever-unfulfilled future?
Click here for information on Gala tickets, and the full auction catalogue.
