John MacCallum Muskrat Falls Installation

Artist Statement
The Muskrat Falls project represents a major turning point for our province – financially, politically and socially – and will continue to have impacts in years to come.

My research for this project includes reading the Muskrat Falls report, as well as various scholarly studies. I have also contacted and spoken with numerous stakeholders to record their opinions and concerns.

What I have learned from working on this project is that the Muskrat Falls dam has stirred up many very strong, often opposing points of view. It has made me realize that Newfoundland and Labrador is a place where you can safely voice your opinion.

In parallel, Water Street is a space where people from all walks of life mingle together to shop, see the views, have a meal and a pleasant afternoon. “Water” is an art installation presenting the different voices of six people touched by the Muskrat Falls including an industrial electrician, a teenaged Inuit protester and drummer, and an Innu man arrested at Muskrat Falls.

SHOW RUNS
Noon-6pm, every day from September 8 until Friday September 22.
235 Water St, Street level of Scotia Building

Funding thanks to the Canada Council for the Arts and ArtsNL

Jennifer Morgan Review
“John McCallum… has reignited my love of raw, emotive, abstract expressionism. McCallum, a furniture maker and construction worker in his day job, uses shaped canvases and glues everything on in unrestrained creativity…. In addition to being fearless, McCallum is a really strong draftsman, capturing a figure with a few deft strokes, and a room with minimal but accurate perspective lines.”

From John
My art has a characteristic rawness. It is born of robust physical stuff that speaks to me in uncompromising terms, like roof shingles that glisten with tar and drips of paint. My images are as likely to be worked in acrylic chaulking as acrylic paint. In my sculpture I strive for a deliberate pile of elements more akin to a wood heap than a poised bronze. It reminds us that life happens but it always changes. And the beauty of the wood heap is that it will be used or waste away and not consume an obscene amount of oil.”

Contact
[email protected]
cel: 709-728-0902