Pearl Van Geest

Pearl Van Geest (she/they) is a queer Canadian artist, practicing since graduating from art school (OCAD) in 1996. She also holds a BSc, MFA and BEd. Her work is included in private and public collections, including the Canadian Arts Council’s Art Bank. Informed by theories of queer ecology, Van Geest explores ideas that complicate commonly perceived binaries and dichotomies such as human/animal; nature/culture and male/female – in the case of these paintings, by rotating mirrored shorelines. Colour and colour relationships as an energetic and visually dynamic force is paramount.
In the series of paintings showing at the TOAE, Van Geest uses photographs taken while paddling along shorelines of lakes and rivers – from southern Ontario, upstate New York and in the northern Ontario parks of Temagami, Algonquin and Pukaskwa. They are from times where the surface of the water is like glass, reflecting rocks and trees of the forests. In rotating the images in a bi-symmetrically vertical orientation openings, imagery resembling body parts and creatures appear and disappear suggesting interconnectivity and fluidity the macro and micro, the biotic and abiotic, and the human and non-human.