| ARTIST BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH: | “The land is the canvas, the trees, the lay of the land, everything is part of the artwork”. Peter von Tiesenhausen is an influential environmental artist and activist. His belief in the sanctity of the land, and in spiritual transcendence, is evident in his work. His practice includes painting, installation, performance, sculpture, video and community engagement activities (helping build the local Community Centre using reclaimed materials), and his works celebrate and simultaneously protect the spaces they inhabit. He is well known for copyrighting his own land as an autonomous artwork, to protect it from encroaching oil and gas interests.
Peter has lived on land near the small hamlet of Demmitt, near Grande Prairie, Alberta, since his early childhood. After two years studying at ACAD in Calgary (1979-81), he worked in construction, on oil drilling rigs and as a gold prospector in Yukon and Antarctica, until the age of 30, when he turned to painting full time. As he witnessed changes to the Peace Country resulting from pipelines and clear-cut logging, his traditional landscape paintings gave way to what he has called his land works, drawing attention to natural materials, exploring their potential in “the thrill of making”, and allowing nature to participate, to shape, and eventually reclaim them. Many of his site-specific works will succumb to decay, eventually existing only in photographs.
He explores the themes of transformation, the making of meaning, and the cycle of life and death, as he uses materials such as mud – the earth from which we all come, – fire, ashes, ice or wood. Trees play a central role in his work. Ship, built onto, and into, his Demmitt land, is constructed of woven willow branches, and evokes the journey and memories of his ancestors coming from Europe. One of his signature works, The Watchers (1997), comprised five 8-foot-high, sentinel-like human figures. Trees were roughly cut with a chainsaw, doused in fuel and set alight until charred black. They were then exhibited over five years in widely varying locations. Witnessing and witnessed, they made a grand tour of 30,000 kilometres across Canada on the back of Peter’s truck. Canadians photographed the passing figures, and Peter documented their filming.
Von Tiesenhausen has held 45 solo shows, and over 50 group shows, since 1990. He is represented by TrépanierBaer in Calgary, Willock &Sax, Banff; Clint Roenisch Gallery, Toronto; and James Baird Gallery, St Johns, NL. He has lectured at universities and galleries in Canada, the US and Europe. His work is held in private collections worldwide, and can be seen at the Banff Centre for the Arts, at the Art Gallery of Alberta and MacEwan University (Edmonton), Calgary’s Glenbow Museum, the Kelowna Art Gallery and the Tom Thomson Art Gallery, amongst other venues. Drawn by Desire (2017), a shimmering, suspended artwork 50 feet high, is installed in an Edmonton branch of Simons department store. In 2015, Peter received the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Distinguished Artist Award.
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