InFormation​

McClure Gallery  |  Montreal, Quebec  |  2011



In spite of our ability to explain the natural world, there is still a certain mystery to how matter takes form, seeming to be at first one thing, and then becoming another. Light things become dark, soft things become hard, solid things begin to flow. Such transformations open onto questions of our own being and becoming, and how we find ourselves in a world in flux. These questions are at play in the exhibition In Formation, a series of installations in which Linda Swanson explores the phenomenon of metamorphosis through both raw and kiln-fired ceramic materials. In retrieving a naturalness from industrially refined and even synthetic clays, salts, and mineral compounds, she reveals an ambiguous dimension of artifice that allows us to think about nature and ourselves.