Retrospective of the Road Show

RETROSPECTIVE OF THE ROAD SHOW EXHIBIT BY BERNICE VINCENT (1934 -2016)

Bernice Vincent at the Forest City Galley, 1990, Photograph of Bernice Vincent with her show at the Forest City Gallery, 1990

Daddy How Long Till We Get There, 1990, Acrylic paint on board

"Highways have brought the countryside closer, but familiarity has bred the usual consequence. In [How Long Till We Get There] a car speeds away beyond a fetching-looking landscape that it clearly has sped into and out of without even slowing down. ... Wherever "there" is, the work implies, those kids and their daddy had already got somewhere worth getting to and hadn't even known it."

Doug Bale, London Free Press, October 19, 1991

Passing Through the Landscape, 1991, acrylic on wooden cigar box top with Melamine-clad pedestal, Collection of Museum, London. Gift of the artist, 2006

Ribbon Box, 1991, Sculpture, cardboard box, paper, acrylic paint

The View Ahead, 1990, acrylic on panel, Collection of Museum London. Gift of the artist, 2006

From "The Road Show" at Gibson Gallery, 1991

During the past few years, I have made a series of paintings concentrating on our contemporary use of the land. Some of these paintings have included variations on a generic white car, "Everycar" travelling along hard-edged grey roads that are imposed on masses of detailed, lush, green landscape - similar to the summertime landscape of South Western Ontario.

More recently, for the "Road Show", I have used cut-out formats, three dimensional pieces, and other formal devices to emphasize the thrust of the raods, and to draw the viewer into each individual work. The exhibition itself is shaped to take the viewer from a somewhat amused reaction to the unexpected treatment of a familiar environment, to a more sombre, indeed appalling, presentation of the roads that lead us to the desecration of more distant sites.

"Northern Vision" is a symbolic presentation of the scars made on the landscape by clear cutting. "Southern Vision" is an installation in which the road leads into an apocalyptic vision of the burning of rain forest, with painted smoke billowing upthe wall and onto the ceiling above the viewer, threatening to engulf everything around it.

-Bernice Vincent

Northern Vision: Clear Cutting, 1991, Acrylic paint on board 52" x 40"

Southern Vision: Burning the Rainforest, 1991, Installation: Acrylic paint on board and acrylic paint on gallery wall and ceiling, Cut out painting on board, 52" x 40"

White Car Coming Into the Picture, Acrylic paint on board with cutout 24" x 36", 1989

Driving Home, Acrylic paint on board with cutout, 24" x 28", 1989

Fragment, Acrylic paint on board in three panels, 96" x 108". 1989

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The Embassy Cultural House (ECH) is located on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabek, Haudenosaunee, Lūnaapéewak, and Chonnonton peoples, at the forks of Deshkan Ziibi (Antler River), an area subject to the Dish with One Spoon Covenant Wampum and other treaties, colonized as London, Ontario. The ECH strives to create meaningful relationships between the Indigenous Peoples of Turtle Island and our contributors. The ECH honours the stewardship of the many Indigenous peoples who have resided on these lands since time immemorial.