Lifesaving: Janet Bellotto

The metaphor of water is omnipresent in Janet Bellotto’s work and is a comment on submersion and reflection. Bellotto’s art tries to capture the in-between states that are always in flux. She is interested in oral histories, headlines and legends; and how they are reflected in daily life. The story of Atlantis, and the great deluge, has been central to her practice, where “the world that drowned” becomes ever more plausible. Constantly looking at the edge between water and land, her practice encompasses various media, including sculpture, installation, photography, video and performance.

For her new exhibition at the project space of the gallery, Bellotto is taking her inspiration from historical narratives of the dune-like island of Sable Island, Canada, through the artist’s recent expedition to the island. The island’s last residents who developed “Life Saving Stations” to save hundreds of shipwrecks and avoid countless deaths failed due as a result of the unpredictable environment of Sable Island and the introduction of technology. Although there is little that humans have not conquered yet around the world, this place is one of those that could not be developed into an urban or get-away island. Now a National Park, and home to wild horses and seals, its existence as an island drifts in the Atlantic Ocean, that destroys and saves lives, reflecting on today’s hope for finding lands and new beginnings.

In this manner, Bellotto’s new series of works in the context of Sable Island, also known as “Graveyard of the Atlantic” invite the audience to think about islands as dreamlands and/or graveyards. Bellotto highlights the ephemerality and transience of the capacity of these small landmasses surrounded by water to survive and to exist as platforms for utopia. Concepts of isolation, ephemerality, utopia, as well as survival in water become explicit throughout the exhibition.

For more information, please contact Zilberman Gallery; hazal@zilbermangallery.com

Janet Bellotto is an artist, educator, writer and curatorial initiator from Toronto, teaching as an Associate Professor of the College of Arts and Creative Enterprises at Zayed University, UAE. She received her MFA from Concordia University, Montreal, after her undergraduate studies at OCAD University in Sculpture/Installation. Her work has been exhibited in a variety of collective, group, and solo exhibitions internationally, including Beijing, New York, Toronto and Venice. Bellotto was Artistic Director for the 20th International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA2014) held in Dubai with the theme of location.