Along the Lines of Paths and Portals, July 2023, Deiglan Gallery, Akureyri Iceland
“along the lines of paths and portals will showcase works by July artists-in-residence Luke Fair and Natalie Goulet. This exhibition is a multidisciplinary collection of drawings, hand-printed photographs, installation and video work. Fair’s drawing and painting practice overlaps and entangles with Goulet’s alternative photographic work through questions surrounding water, ecology and the use of walking as a contemplative way of engaging with the landscape. A path can be a passageway, or a trail timeworn by many feet. As a suffix, path is etymologically tied to suffering: “one suffering from” a particular disease, condition or ailment. In a medical sense, a portal is a place where something enters and leaves the system. The act of walking becomes a reflective, ambulatory portal through the landscape as it reveals and conceals itself, and as certain aspects of the land recede into the background of our thoughts. As the land increasingly suffers the effects of extractive capitalism, where will the water go? Where will we go? What will we suffer from as the glaciers die, and sea levels rise? How do we encounter and be with ecology? What does it mean to be ecological? The work does not make attempts at presenting solutions, but offers ponderings on generating empathy in response to or for the environment.” - Natalie Goulet