Paul Roorda – Flood and Fiction
at Durham Art Gallery
with site specific work in a deserted church nearby.

March 17 to May 6, 2012
Opening: Saturday, March 17, 2 to 4 p.m.

Amid overlapping narratives of personal disaster, biblical apocalypse and scientific warnings of global climate change and rising sea levels, the artist becomes a character in his own fiction: Prophet, survivor, scientist, historian, and rescuer. Exploring an epic apocalyptophilia with layered nuance, Paul Roorda creates a story of the flood in art that incorporates a collection of vintage objects such as early 20th century disaster postcards, vacation photos, pages from Dante's Inferno, water safety manuals, life jackets, weather damaged notices and scientific glassware holding water from the River Styx. This project looks at the way narratives are created, documented and memorialized in various forms of text and artifact. Images repeat and reflect, are magnified or suffer distortion to expose the undercurrents of a societal need to dwell on disaster and the accompanying fatigue and cynicism with our most recent warnings of catastrophe.

This exhibition includes an installation in a deserted country church just west of Durham. Viewed from outside by peering through dusty windows the relics of a congregation's last Sunday are seen as if the church was long ago abandoned in tragic circumstances.

Go to Flood and Fiction and Church Intallation for exhibition preview and information.

Paul Roorda lives in Waterloo, Ontario, and makes art using discarded books and found objects. His work investigates changing belief systems, the construction of knowledge and the practice of ritual in religion, science, medicine and environmentalism. He has exhibited extensively including shows at the Toronto School of Theology, Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery and Wilfrid Laurier University. Paul Roorda has been awarded grants from the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts and his work is found in numerous collections including the Donovan Collection at the University of Toronto. He is on is on the board of directors of CAFKA, the Contemporary Art Forum of Kitchener and Area. Paul Roorda's upcoming exhibitions are at Grimsby Public Art Gallery and at the Dadian Gallery of Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington DC.

www.paulroorda.com
paul@paulroorda.com
http://www.facebook.com/PaulRoorda

Paul Roorda is grateful to Ontario Arts Council whose funding has supported the creation and exhibition of this work.



Admission is free. Everyone is welcome.

DURHAM ART GALLERY
251 George Street East
Durham ON N0G 1R0
Tel: 519.369.3692
http://www.durhamart.on.ca
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MEDIA CONTACT:
Terry Burns
tburns@durhamart.on.ca
519.369.3692