MEMORIAL UNIVERSITY
First Space Gallery: rendering hope from a burned landscape

Artist Joanne Cole is making art from ashes.

A Lonely Day on the Burnt Shoreline depicts Ochre Pit Cove. Joanne Cole was inspired by the unburnt golden track that stood out against the charred land, leading along the shoreline toward the ocean. The artist used burnt twigs as charcoal and ant-hill clay in the skyline. Photo: Joanne Cole

The Memorial University Libraries retiree moved to Western Bay, N.L., and built a new art studio in 2024, a dream she had been working towards as she finished her last years at the Queen Elizabeth II Library.

Within a year of building her custom-designed art studio, it burned to the ground in the Kingston wildfire that left much of the landscape in Conception Bay North charred and bare. Her home, located immediately next to the studio, was spared.

Joanne Cole at the First Space Gallery in the Queen Elizabeth II Library. Photo: Rich Blenkinsopp

What followed that painful experience was a creative journey that reaffirmed Ms. Cole's love of the landscape. The burned branches and twigs became the very materials she used to capture a resilient landscape and community.

"I didn't see the land as destroyed; it was now a blank canvas that allowed me to see the beauty and the mystery in nature as the burned ground slowly began to grow green again," said Ms. Cole.

The ant-hill clay and charcoal from burned trees that she foraged became pigments in the work.

"This body of artwork examines the power of nature and its ability to keep moving forward in the wake of destructive forces," she said. "It establishes a coping mechanism for loss of a beautiful landscape."

Ms. Cole's exhibit, To Soothe a Smouldering Heart, is on display in the First Space Gallery of the Queen Elizabeth II Library until Nov. 30.

Along with the paintings, a hand-crafted artist's book is on display that documents the journey of regrowth of the landscape around her property.

You're invited to an opening event on Friday, Sept. 18, from 6:15-7:30 p.m. All are welcome and light refreshments will be served. Parking is available in lot 18.

1/ Ant-hill clay and charcoal powder

Joanne Cole gathered twigs and ant-hill clay from the charred landscape around her home. She processed the materials by sifting, grinding and baking them until they turned into a fine powder to use as colour tint in some of the paintings. Photo: Joanne Cole

2/ Spout Cove Gully

This painting captures a moody landscape of fog where fire has revealed new areas of a cliff that was once covered in vegetation but now lays stark and exposed. Photo: Joanne Cole

3/ Spring Marsh

This scene is one of the artist's favourite places near her home, which she named Drowned Boot Marsh. The land around the low-lying marsh was destroyed by fire but the marsh remains vibrant and alive. Photo: Joanne Cole

4/ Page from Aftermath

Aftermath is a handmade book by the artist. The book has 43 pages and bound using 2.5" brass posts and screws. The pages are composed of Magnani watercolour paper hand-tinted with ant-hill clay. Images are created using found charcoal, acrylic paint and text handwritten using dark sepia pigment liner. The covers are made with birch veneer decorated with a burnt metal plate, acrylic paint and an ant-hill clay dyed cotton spine. Aftermath is the record of regrowth of three sites close to the artist's home for a period of one year. Photo: Joanne Cole