Much Was Decided Before You Were Born by Mariele Neudecker

By Paul Gessell

The Canadian Museum of Nature has, within its much-renovated walls, one of the largest art galleries in the capital area. But it is also one of the more boring galleries in Ottawa because of a tendency to showcase earnest and predictable photographs or paintings. Rarely is there anything to make a visitor say “wow.”

Thankfully, the newest exhibition, which runs until Feb. 12, boasts considerable “wow” factor. Preternatural, as it is titled, offers visitors a selection of art that travels into the realm of the unexpected, marrying art, nature, and science in fascinating ways.

Who, for instance, can fail to be dazzled by the magical photo-based work of Gatineau artist Marie-Jeanne Musiol? Through a complicated electromagnetic process, Musiol is able to capture, photographically, the light field of leaves.

The result is a series of images of leaves surrounded by a luminous halo. Most of the leaves, arranged like museum specimens, are harvested from Musiol’s Gatineau neighbourhood and include oak, maple, and poplar.

Ottawa artist Andrew Wright confounds you with conceptual photo-based work. Initially, you think you are looking at an extreme close-up of the surface of the moon in the night sky. Instead, these are photographic images of a flat snowy field on Baffin Island that have been transferred onto a laminated plywood surface. But Wright has turned the images upside down so that the snowy field is at the top of the plywood and the black night sky at the bottom. To further complicate things, Wright has caused the plywood to bend in places, giving the images a sculptural effect.

Other artists in the exhibition include Mariele Neudecker from Britain, Anne Katrine Senstad from Norway, and Sarah Walko from New York. Each artist takes elements of the natural world and makes them “preternatural.”

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