river memoir — Maeve Hind

Maeve Hind’s River Memoir recounts her experience of walking, listening, and looking on the section of Beaver River that runs through Clarksburg, Ontario.

In a new place, on unfamiliar ground, she walks the trail: looking across the river to a lively assemblage of trees, curious to know more, envious to transform. Spending time here and visiting it like a friend, Maeve starts fitting in; figuring out. She navigates new terrain slowly, becoming the landscape in order to learn about it. River Memoir depicts this encounter.

She recalls the energy between the trees with cut-out shapes made of neons, darks, and greens. She paints a eulogy for the fallen log, flowing down the river. Embodied experience allows Maeve and the River to get to know each other. Maeve develops a relationship with the landscape to familiarize herself with it, and create a safer space for herself. In these moments, she is no longer the observer, or witness to the landscape; her arm is the branch of a tree- the hair on her legs is the grass on the soil.

Spending time painting the landscape, in part from the memory of how it looked and how it felt, she communicates through patient paint strokes, vivid colours, unknown shapes. Continuously painting over, cutting out, and mark-making with urgency to get the story right. By adding three additional canvases, she aims to demonstrate the river's vastness and the feeling of being surrounded and immersed. She’s reminded of the River’s wonder. Her feet are in its grass.