Sarah (left) and Caleb Jones (right) of Saint John's Jones Gallery (Credit: Elizabeth MacLeod)
The ‘Limit of View’ exhibition is artist Sarah Jones’s first solo exhibition of her work. The exhibition debuted November 14 at the Jones Gallery and pays tribute to the horizons of the East Coast.
“My exhibition is based on my practice of looking at a kind of regional identity and what makes Saint John special, what does it mean to be a Maritimer and to live on the East Coast,” said Jones, who is the gallery’s Curator while her brother Caleb is the Gallery Director.
She had been thinking a lot about the idea of the horizon in Saint John and what its mean to have direct access to it on an ongoing basis and what it contributes towards our identity, resulting in the exhibition.
Sarah (left) and Caleb Jones (right) of Saint John’s Jones Gallery (Credit: Elizabeth MacLeod)
‘Limit of View’ features mixed media artwork, created using a variety of different materials, from unbleached cotton to pumice materials underneath layers of oil paint and pencil, pastels and charcoal. The effects of each piece were created with scrapers and pallet knives.
“Each painting has a very harsh horizon line and looks at the effects of the water and long view out to the ocean, and the confluence of weather and water at the horizon line mixed with industrial smoke is a really important part of my practice,” said Jones.
The horizon, what it looks like and means to people living on the coast, is the central theme of Jones’ exhibition. “I was looking at the roots of the word ‘horizon,’ trying to figure out like where the word comes from and what it means,” said Jones.
Artwork from Limit of View (Credit: Elizabeth MacLeod)
“There is a word in Old English called eaggemearc, which means eye-mark, or the limit of where your eye can mark on the landscape.”
“There is basically no such thing as horizon in nature, like its created as this human concept.”
Jones’ personal experiences with the Saint John waterline and landscapes shaped the ‘Limit of View’ exhibition.
Artwork from Limit of View (Credit: Elizabeth MacLeod)
“I spend a lot of time on Tin Can Beach and Courtney Bay and I typically tend to look at industrial and urban landscapes. I was thinking a lot about open water and how that makes me feel.”
Jones and her brother remember how they would hear from fellow Maritimers who had moved away from the coast about how, “when we move away from the coast there’s this very visceral feeling of claustrophobia.”
“That omnipresent of a horizon line in our environment here is something that’s really core to our identity, its something that we miss when we leave.”
