Inland

Abstract

Shawn Serfas grew up exploring the northern reaches of Saskatchewan’ lakes and river systems Saskatchewan. Although initially drawn to an academic career in the environmental sciences, Serfas pursued Fine Arts and Art History degrees in Saskatchewan as well as a Master of Fine Arts degree at the University of Alberta. His interests include contemporary painting, drawing and printmaking practices. His work echoes a reflection on relational abstraction, environmental aesthetics, the landscape as well as issues bordering abstraction and representation. Serfas is profoundly aware of human intervention on natural resources and of its devastating consequences. His series Inland and Portrait of a Mark appeared in the 2016 exhibition Inland curated by Stuart Reid at the Rodman Hall Art Centre, Brock University, St. Catharines. Richard Fausset was affected by the passage of Hurricane Katrina over New Orleans, Louisiana and its surroundings in 2005. His piece of creative writing investigates how human life impacts nature in a bayou, and vice-versa. Serfas’ artworks and Fausset’s fictional narrative elicit a dialogue between north and south yet offer two distinct reflections on pollution and the insufficiently controlled use of the environment in North America. Shawn Serfas’ most recent exhibitions include Grid Terrain, Gallery MX, Montreal, Quebec, Alloyed Prairie, Bugera Matheson Gallery, Edmonton, Alberta, Portrait of a Mark, SOPA Fine Arts Gallery, Kelowna, British Columbia in 2018; Pseudo-Fiction, (with Catherine Parayre), Alliance Francaise – Galerie Pierre Léon, Toronto, Ontario in 2017; Cleave and Trench, Bugera Matheson Gallery, Edmonton, Alberta in 2016; Dig, Machine Shop Gallery, Algoma University, Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario in 2015; and Out of Sorts, (with William Griffiths), Sopa Fine Arts, Kelowna, British Columbia in 2014.