Title: A Front Farewell
Size: 11x15in Electro-etching
Edition: Varied Edition of 5/10

About the Work:
This work memorializes the abrupt ending of the one-hundred-year-old tropical jungle at the Conservatory in Winnipeg’s Assiniboine Park. In this series of work I address the larger human experience of grief, sadness, and loss. These images also focus our attention on the continued destruction of trees and forests locally, nationally and internationally.

About My Process:
Once I was made aware that this place was going to be destroyed, I enacted a daily ritual of bequeathing a form of immortality to these magnificent plants.  I sat for hours absorbing the energy of these living things, documenting and recording them in preparation for the inevitable emptiness and void which followed the final closing of the doors, locking me out on that final frigid April evening in 2018.

I made many drawings on paper and directly onto my copper plates while sitting on one of the benches in the Conservatory. I took the copper plates back to Martha Street Studio where I applied an experimental electro-etching process to simultaneously alter both the negative and positive plates using electricity, water and sulphate. 

The positive plate produces a nuanced, tonally rich commemorative image while the negative plate presents a slightly out of focus, dark, brooding alteration of the image mirroring a sense of vulnerability, grief, and loss.

I marked and stained the rag paper with the life-juice of plants and integrated yellow and lilac Japanese paper reflecting the colour of bruising. I allowed the positive plate to speak to what was and the negative plate to represent the destruction of this place, while I drew into the paper to express my emotional connection to this place as I processed the finality.

Follow my art adventure on Instagram @cornelius.karen

Karen Cornelius holds the Copyright on all her artwork. No image may be reproduced for any reason without the consent of the artist.