Together We Bloom & Shadows | City Gallery | January 12 – March 8, 2024
Artist Statement: Together We Bloom
Canada’s thirteen provincial floral emblems symbolize the range of habitats and regional identities of our country. Together they represent the nation’s diversity as well as being symbols of strength, adaptation and unity. Shown with great acclaim at The Beaverbrook Art Gallery – New Brunswick’s provincial gallery, this Canadian bouquet is a metaphorical depiction of our cultural mix, the whole greater than the sum of the individuals.
Artist Statement: Shadows
Shadows consists of seven flameworked borosilicate glass wall sculptures to represent the seven ecosystems of Canada. Shadows draws attention to the disappearing ecosystems of Canada that are quickly becoming shadows on our landscapes due to the climate crisis. Shadows allows the viewer to recognize that by losing these crucial ecosystems, we are losing ourselves.
Biography
Heather McCaig is a flameworked borosilicate glass artist born in Toronto, Ontario, now living near Sussex, New Brunswick. She is entirely self-taught and at the forefront of flameworked fine glass art in Atlantic Canada. Through her work, she hopes to portray the fragility of our natural world and inspire a need for its protection.
Heather’s sculpted glass provincial and territorial floral emblems were displayed at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, New Brunswick’s Provincial Gallery, in 2023. She is the recipient of the 2022 Nel Oudemans Award from the Sheila Hugh MacKay Foundation. She currently sits on the board of AX: The Arts and Culture Centre of Sussex, NB. In 2021, Heather’s glass series Shadows, a statement about the global climate crisis, was selected by Canadian Heritage and the Provincial Department of Tourism, Heritage and Culture to represent New Brunswick in a virtual exhibition at the Frankfurt Book Fair in Germany.
“Since my glass journey began in 2013, the natural world has been my biggest inspiration. The delicate petals of a flower undisturbed by the elements it absorbs, the fierceness of a spring river and how all the insignificant moments are miraculously interconnected.
Bringing this inspiration together into glass sculptures is no easy feat; lighting up a propane and oxygen rich torch, spinning molten borosilicate glass rods and tubes at precise temperatures to bend, taper and twist; at the same time keeping the glass at its satisfied temperature to prevent cracking.
I create sculpted glass flora to design a delicate world. I hope to portray how fragile the natural world is and inspire a need for its protection.”