Shawn Chamberlain

I spend time drawing where I land my canoe, I offer tobacco, rest, and continue on to a spot suitable to make camp. A great deal of the work that I do has a direct relationship to the lands I travel through, as well as the landscape’s influence on me. I am interested in how to approach landscape meaningfully and respectfully. To be aware of colonial histories embedded within depictions of the Canadian wild. And not repeat modes of erasure in representations of an untamed wilderness. I am interested in how landscape and culture can inform my own identity. I have chosen Confluence as the title of my thesis exhibition for its multiple meanings: as a coming or flowing together, meeting, or gathering at one point. I see the term standing for the merging of two, and three-dimensional works, or the merging of materials and processes, and the merging of cultures in items like the Canoe. To me Confluence is also indicative of community, as in a coming together of people. To view additional artworks visit https://shawnchamberlain.portfoliobox.net/