Petrolia – Andreas Rutkauskas
Back to Search[Andreas_Ratkauskas]Petrolia
Andreas Rutkauskas
August 17 - October 13, 2013
When most people think of the oil industry today, they may not typically think of Ontario. Nevertheless, the community of Oil Springs, southeast of Sarnia, was home to the first commercial oil field in North America. While Sarnia is better known today for its extensive petrochemical industry (referred to as Chemical Valley), Petrolia creates a juxtaposition with this region’s industrial heritage landscape.
In February 2011 Rutkauskas was invited by the Judith & Norman Alix Art Gallery (then Gallery Lambton) to participate in an artist-in-resi¬dence project while they closed their doors in preparation to move into a new space. This residency consisted of five visits in order to develop a collaborative research idea with writer/artist Lee Rodney from the Universi¬ty of Windsor, the Sarnia artist-run collective for arts, science and music (SARCASM), and curator Lisa Daniels. Members of the community were provided with GPS units and encouraged to help direct his artistic practice by taking the artist on virtual tours of their favourite locations around the county. It did not take long before they brought him to the site of Oil Springs.
Petrolia presents co-existing themes of the decommissioning or scaling-back of petrochemical processing in Chemical Valley, while simultaneously investigating the pastoral landscape and small-scale, family-operated oil industries of Lambton County. Large-format photographs present views from the periphery of Chemical Val¬ley – a dense social landscape where First Nations ceremonial sites (the cemetery of the Chippewa of Sarnia), abandoned industry (the decommissioned DOW Chemical facilities) and environmental responsibility initiatives (DOW’s community wetlands) all converge, while other images introduce the lush setting of ancient oil fields that have been operated by the same families for many generations. The single channel video Oil! brings the viewer on a journey through the jerker line system, developed in Oil Springs, Ontario in 1863 and still used today to draw crude oil from the wells. What begins as an ambiguous sculpture in motion is eventually revealed as a form of Rube Goldberg machine performing the straightforward task of extracting petroleum. The equipment runs day and night, throughout summer and winter.
Andreas Rutkauskas is originally from Winnipeg where he completed a BFA at the University of Manitoba. In 2003 he moved to Montreal and obtained an MFA at Concordia University, where he now teaches in the Studio Arts de¬partment. His projects have recently been exhib¬ited at the ODD Gallery (Dawson City, Yukon), TRUCK Contemporary Art (Calgary, Alberta), and the Foreman Art Gallery (Lennoxville, Québec). His work has been supported by the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, and the Canada Council for the Arts.
Andreas Rutkauskas
August 17 - October 13, 2013
When most people think of the oil industry today, they may not typically think of Ontario. Nevertheless, the community of Oil Springs, southeast of Sarnia, was home to the first commercial oil field in North America. While Sarnia is better known today for its extensive petrochemical industry (referred to as Chemical Valley), Petrolia creates a juxtaposition with this region’s industrial heritage landscape.
In February 2011 Rutkauskas was invited by the Judith & Norman Alix Art Gallery (then Gallery Lambton) to participate in an artist-in-resi¬dence project while they closed their doors in preparation to move into a new space. This residency consisted of five visits in order to develop a collaborative research idea with writer/artist Lee Rodney from the Universi¬ty of Windsor, the Sarnia artist-run collective for arts, science and music (SARCASM), and curator Lisa Daniels. Members of the community were provided with GPS units and encouraged to help direct his artistic practice by taking the artist on virtual tours of their favourite locations around the county. It did not take long before they brought him to the site of Oil Springs.
Petrolia presents co-existing themes of the decommissioning or scaling-back of petrochemical processing in Chemical Valley, while simultaneously investigating the pastoral landscape and small-scale, family-operated oil industries of Lambton County. Large-format photographs present views from the periphery of Chemical Val¬ley – a dense social landscape where First Nations ceremonial sites (the cemetery of the Chippewa of Sarnia), abandoned industry (the decommissioned DOW Chemical facilities) and environmental responsibility initiatives (DOW’s community wetlands) all converge, while other images introduce the lush setting of ancient oil fields that have been operated by the same families for many generations. The single channel video Oil! brings the viewer on a journey through the jerker line system, developed in Oil Springs, Ontario in 1863 and still used today to draw crude oil from the wells. What begins as an ambiguous sculpture in motion is eventually revealed as a form of Rube Goldberg machine performing the straightforward task of extracting petroleum. The equipment runs day and night, throughout summer and winter.
Andreas Rutkauskas is originally from Winnipeg where he completed a BFA at the University of Manitoba. In 2003 he moved to Montreal and obtained an MFA at Concordia University, where he now teaches in the Studio Arts de¬partment. His projects have recently been exhib¬ited at the ODD Gallery (Dawson City, Yukon), TRUCK Contemporary Art (Calgary, Alberta), and the Foreman Art Gallery (Lennoxville, Québec). His work has been supported by the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, and the Canada Council for the Arts.
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