Nature in the City (1-6, Series)

Details

Year	2022
Artist(s)	Carol Lynn Gilchrist (Red Deer, AB)
Type	Watercolour
Medium	Embossed watercolour on paper
Site Location	4914 48 Avenue

Description

After a twenty-five year long career in community planning in Central Alberta, painting in my retirement has provided me with a unique way of sharing my understanding of the landscape and I wanted to acknowledge that we were celebrating our city’s centennial in 2013. I started with this question: How do we as a community, and as decision-makers value and integrate the natural world and those complex systems into the urban fabric? These cARTography pieces represent the deconstruction of the multi-layered maps I created for planning projects. I was curious about stripping away the complex layers and reducing the urban form information and to focus on the 'nature' of a place. I chose embossing to subtly hint at a conversation I wish to have with the viewer about the natural and built worlds, and the intersection of those worlds. These maps show our impact, our settlement patterns, and ultimately our public planning policies which reflect our community values.