Controlled Burn
Frances Patella

Photo-based, mixed media works on canvas
The work of Frances Patella explores our societies’ relationship to the environment and the role of photographic images in art and culture. Patella explores our current understanding of how the brain processes imagery by using photography to suggest simultaneous and shifting points of view. The photo images introduce a temporal aspect to representation – “It is the visual change in the state of things which will reveal their essential reality” (Ascott 1959).

In the Controlled Burn series, Patella depicts the rare black oak savannahs of High Park in Toronto, in a state of transition from prescribed burns. Here the landscape is confronted by fire, which electrifies the earth and air to produce ephemeral images lasting a brief time before they dissipate into memory.

The combination of media produces a sense of ambiguity; is it fact or fiction, paint or photography? The added presence of human figures silhouetted against this setting adds to the sense of displacement and ambiguity. In the past, fire from lightening would ignite a forested area, and spark a chain of events, which ultimately led to the regeneration of the area. Humans took that lesson to heart and began to actively prescribe burns to quickly clear and rejuvenate land for agriculture. Controlled burns have been used for centuries to clear the land of undesirable plant invasions, and to purify the fields from pests. Smoke and destruction take on a natural part of this constantly changing, smouldering environment. The artist has photographed many burns, not only in Canada, but also in her native Italy. The repetition of images indicates the motion of Patella’s walking or running through the burning scene. Multiple images, time, movement and rhythm combine in recreating how we experience the landscape.

The phenomenon of burning forests remind us of the tenuous and flammable condition of our natural world and at the same time stresses the fundamental need to destroy some of the present to make room for renewed growth and rejuvenation.
Frances Patella’s work may be seen on the web sites www.francespatella.ca and www.ccca.ca