MKG127 is thrilled to present Imaginary Landscapes, an exhibition featuring two recent bodies of work by Victoria-based artist Paul Walde.
In Walde’s Water Music (2022-23), a grid formation of whole notes printed on a metal panel is submerged in the Pacific Ocean and photographed as the tide comes in. Incoming waves and the resulting optical distortions multiply, resize, and reposition the notes to auto-generate a new musical composition when overlaid onto a standard music staff.
These photographic prints are exhibited alongside Walde’s Imaginary Landscape Paintings (2012-2023), a series of painted interpretations of American composer John Cage’s Imaginary Landscape compositions (1939-1952). In 2012, Walde began to collect every version of these works he could find— spanning YouTube posts of excerpts of professional recordings, student performances, and amateur renditions. Each painting was then made on a panel constructed in size relating to the duration of the corresponding recording with white oil paint representing silence, and marks made in response and consideration to frequency, amplitude, and duration of sound.
Paul Walde is an interdisciplinary artist living in Victoria, Canada on lək̓ʷəŋən territory where he is a Professor of Visual Arts at the University of Victoria. For the past 30 years, his work has been engaged with addressing environmental issues including: exploring non-human activity and communication, global warming, deforestation, land use, endangered species, and the artworld. Originally trained as a painter, Walde’s music and sound compositions have been a prominent feature in his artwork for over 20 years. Walde is also a founding member of Audio Lodge, a Canadian sound art collective and Experimental Music Unit, a Victoria-based sound and music ensemble. Since 2021, Walde has been a member of Awi’nakola: Tree of Life, an Indigenous-led research group focused on forest preservation and restoration through the braiding of Indigenous knowledge, scientific research, and the arts.
Recent exhibitions include: Glacial Resonance at the Kamloops Art Gallery (2023); Alaska Variations at Indexical, Santa Cruz, CA (2022); HYPER-POSSIBLE: The 3rd Coventry Biennial at the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, Coventry, UK (2021-2022); Ecologies: Song for the Earth at Musée des Beaux-arts de Montréal (2021); and Weeks Feel Like Days, Months Feel Like Years at the Anchorage Museum, Alaska (2020). Walde also participated in the exhibition, Supply Chain Issues at MKG127 earlier this year.