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Passage and Recall
Krys Kaczkan
Dennis Tourbin Members Gallery at NAC
Opening Reception Saturday 21 May 2016 7PM
On display until Friday 3 June

As a child growing up in Niagara, I spent seemingly endless summers at my grandparents’ farm, at first watching my parents and grandparents toil in the orchards and vineyards and later working there myself. That farm no longer exists, having been swallowed up by urban sprawl, but the recollection of that ever changing landscape, the emotions it evoked, and the hardship it created remains with me to this day.

I left Niagara intending to never return; First traveling to western Europe, then to western Canada, and finally, to the east coast. For some reason, I have always been drawn back to this place, and its haunting rhythmic landscape. The paintings in this exhibition, while inspired by specific sites within Niagara, are not imitations of those locations, but rather “recollections.” They are moments, edited by memory, filtered by recall and transformed by the passage of time. Through the years, I have chosen to explore other mediums and subject matter, both figuratively and conceptually, but each time I return to the Niagara landscape looking for more than the mere sum of form, colour and texture. The landscape has become a measure of growth for me. It has become my meter.

– Krys Kaczkan