Review: 12 Point Buck, Harcourt House Arts Centre*

Negotiating intricate relationships with nature, and citing the British cultural theorist Raymond Williams's description of 'nature' as "perhaps the most complext word in the language," the Lethbridge-based artists Leila Armstrong and Chai Duncan revel in the nostalgia of Canada's iconic wilderness.

Image credit: Leila Armstrong Ursus arctos horribilis 2008

Working under the name 12 Point Buck (a reference to the hunting term for shooting a prized male deer with a 12-point rack of antlers), Armstrong and Duncan engage in a dialogue that simultaneously criticizes how we mediate our relationships with nature and sentimentalizes how wilderness tropes are cherished in our culture . . .

*To read the review in full, pick up the Winter 2010/11 issue of Canadian Art