Bucked & Buried

Bucked & Buried was born out of a self-directed residency alongside close friends at Äthèkal (Ark Mountain) on the traditional territory of the Champagne Aishihik First Nation. Katherine LeBlanc’s work contemplates the transformation of matter, inspired by Äthèkal; the peace offered amidst its quiet erosion, and the ruptures felt during its landslides. This show is an inquiry into the chaotic manner in which our experiences and memories, having been buried, can resurface in familiar and unfamiliar forms. 

Surrounding a charnel ground of porcupine quills, written works from Fiona Whelan, Nelly Bouevitch, and Leo Berman are woven throughout paintings, mixed media, photos and remnants of on-the-land assemblages. These delicate arrangements have a kinetic dimension that teeters on the edge of destruction. Their movement is inevitable but their function as symbol elicits something permanent from the transient. 

In the conclusion of the show, the arrangement will be swept away as all things must make way for what comes next. The work does not aim to preserve a moment but to acknowledge its passage—to recognize that everything we encounter, like the quills underfoot or the path down a shifting mountainside, is part of a continual process of becoming, eroding, resurfacing, and transforming.