Artists are known to literally and metaphorically take the road less traveled; whether this is due to their curiosity or intrinsic need to create and experience the new is debatable. However their experiences of place continue to shape art, art history, and the world itself.

Some of the most exciting and interesting areas in some of the world’s hottest destinations have come into being because artists sought out these areas, made them their home and created work about them. Think about Soho, and Chelsea in New York or the Left Bank in Paris, these sites were largely unpopular and relatively unused before artists came in inhabited and found places to explore, work and represent.

It is in this spirit that the three artists represented in The Scenic Route have taken an opportunity to document three very different landscapes. Lorraine Maher uses watercolour to highlight a very ephemeral experience of the northern French coast. Sarah Cardoni, snaps and shoots a Cuba whose historical past is still deeply embedded with its communist present. Michael Ciesielski brings us the energy and enthusiasm of St John’s, NL in a series of rigorously worked prints.

Their ideas of place although limited and momentary remind us of the subjectivity of traveling to new places. While some of us might find comfort and beauty in the familiar others look for the new and unfamiliar. It is this idea that is at the heart of viewing art that we each come to an image with our own expectations and value. The Scenic Route is not only about what these artists have depicted but what we bring to these depictions.

Sean George, 2018

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. – Marcel Proust

ARTISTS' STATEMENT

Lorraine Maher’s career started with formal training in the field of commercial and graphic arts. This has unfolded to reveal a love of fine art. Learning has never stopped for Lorraine as she has moved to watercolour as her main love of communication and expression. In all of her work she endeavours to take the viewer on her journey throughout a variety of cultures. Lorraine invites you to enter worlds that are not always her own.

Sarah Cardoni has been photographing since childhood; she cannot imagine her life without a camera, without pictures, and without observation. These key elements are the driving force in her career and her lifelong interest and passion for art and in particular photography.

Michael Ciesielski is a multi-talented emerging artist known for his exploration in the fields of printmaking, film/video and sculpture. He majored in fine arts at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, with a minor in art history. Courses of interest to him included Feminist Art History, French Art and its Reception and Printmaking in Early Modern Europe. At Queen's, Michael developed a passion for woodcuts, particularly in the style of master printmaker, Albrecht Dürer.