Tongue of the Glacier - Tidal Art Centre

Cortes Island artist Judith Williams brings decades of observing the effect of human-caused climate change on land and water in Bute Inlet and elsewhere, to this exhibition at Tidal Art Centre (see above). The UBC professor emeritus has previously shown work at the Vancouver Art Gallery, the UBC Museum of Anthropology and elsewhere, and has published extensively on water systems and climate change.

“I made paintings on pH neutral watercolour paper with the collected water alone (see left) to make whatever mark, tone or figured area it could,” she wrote. “I included in the series an ‘oil painting’ made with the inlet water’s unique marine lipid known as Bute Wax, because it’s property of extending over and into a surface indefinitely, and the mystery of its undiscovered inlet storage location and natural creation mirrored the unpredictable and evolving nature of the fjord. Each water collection focused my attention acutely on the location and its inhabitants, and the small paintings acted as keys to the history and prehistory of the site.”