{"id":23316,"date":"2019-03-21T18:22:22","date_gmt":"2019-03-21T22:22:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23316"},"modified":"2019-03-21T18:22:32","modified_gmt":"2019-03-21T22:22:32","slug":"running-forward-or-running-out-of-time-tire-tracks-tell-a-story-in-new-exhibition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/running-forward-or-running-out-of-time-tire-tracks-tell-a-story-in-new-exhibition\/","title":{"rendered":"Running Forward \u2013 or running out of time? Tire tracks tell a story in new exhibition"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What do you see when\nthe rubber hits the road? Do you see where someone has already been, or do you\nsee an already carved path to where you want to go? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each track tells a\nstory and, for artist Daniel St-Amant, the journey is all about the ultimate\ndestination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. St-Amant\u2019s series\nof nature paintings are now on the walls of the Aurora Cultural Centre through\nMay 25 in Running Forward, but if you\u2019re expecting to see photograph-like\npaintings of eagles soaring above a lush tree canopy or a wolf pack trudging\nthrough an intricately depicted tundra landscape, be prepared for something a\nlittle more provocative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It all starts by\ntaking it to the streets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before he begins a\npainting, Mr. St-Amant grabs his canvas and hits the road \u2013 literally.\nStretched across the pavement, primed for oncoming cars to run over, the\nvehicles leave their distinctive mark on the previously pristine canvas.\nAlthough each track tells a story of its own, they combine to form a symbolic,\nalbeit unlikely, backdrop to his vision of nature, and perhaps even a call to\naction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am from the\ncountry and I spent a lot of time playing in the woods every day,\u201d he recalls.\n\u201cI remember figuring out when I was young the only way to make a living would\nbe to get out of the country unless I wanted to be a farmer, which I didn\u2019t\nwant to be. I wanted to go to the city, get a lot and be an artist. When you\nget to the city, you start to crave the country and just see pavement and\nconcrete everywhere. There wasn\u2019t a lot of greenspace and I think, subconsciously,\nthis is where it has led me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Priming his canvas\nwith the tracks of passing cars is a unique process which, he says, serves to\nchallenge viewers to reflect on \u201chow industrialism, urbanization and the\nover-use of resources are changing people, animals and habitats everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Early works in his\nseries used more traditional depictions of loons, wolves and bears, to name\njust a few species brought to life on top of the tire tracks. More recent\nadditions to his portfolio take more literal inspiration from nature, combining\nfound objects such as twigs, leaves and moss mixed into the paint, to add\ntexture, depth and character to animal silhouettes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe animals are\nliving in, and adapting to the environment we\u2019re making,\u201d he says. \u201cYou see\nraccoons living in the city and they are better fed than the raccoons living in\nthe woods because they are living off our garbage, but then they have higher\nrates of diabetes and they die earlier. It\u2019s the same with birds. Recently, [I\nconsidered] why not make the animals out of the environment?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow does the forest\nfloor look when you walk in the woods? I am trying to create a dialogue. I have\nhad a lot of people who look at my paintings and it is like they have never\nstopped to look at the forest floor, or they have never stopped to look at a\ntree. People always think the animal paintings are beautiful, but when they\nrealise [they\u2019re painted] on tire tracks, sometimes they get sad. It is almost\nlike a slap in their face. Everyone knows what is happening is bad and there are\neffects.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aurora Cultural\nCentre curator Stephanie Nicolo agrees, noting that, from her perspective, the\nuse of natural elements in each of the paintings on show illustrates, \u201cthe more\nyou ignore [what is before you], the easier it is to ignore the criticalness of\neverything that is going on in your environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis has the story\nof why we need to conserve and why we need to be thinking about those processes\nwhile still staying within that beauty of the canon of painting animals. I think we, as humans, as an audience, find beauty in\nthese works because we have a primal connection to nature. We may not\nacknowledge it on the first glance, but that is part of why we see the beauty\nin his work. We have this wanting of connecting with nature.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daniel St-Amant\u2019s\n\u201cRunning Forward\u201d is on now at the Aurora Cultural Centre through Saturday, May\n25. He will be in the gallery for an opening reception on March 22 from 6 \u2013 8\np.m., and again on March 30 for a demonstration from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more information, visit www.auroraculturalcentre.ca<\/a>.<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What do you see when the rubber hits the road? Do you see where someone has already been, or do you see an already carved path to where you want to go? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":23292,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27,4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-and-culture","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/2019-03-21-05.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-644","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-15 10:01:50","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23316\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}