Peter Dykhuis - Art - Radar Paintings

Radar Paintings
2000 installation view
I-Land Gallery, Toronto, Ontario

Electronica: Thierry Delva and Peter Dykhuis
2001 installation view
YHZ-Xportfolio, Halifax, Nova Scotia

Radar Sights
2003 installation view
The Owens Gallery, Sackville, New Brunswick

Hide in Plain Sight
2005 installation view
The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, Ontario

Radar Paintings
2007 installation view
You Are Here, Saint Mary’s University Art Gallery, Halifax, Nova Scotia
photo credit: Steve Farmer

Radar Paintings (1999 – 2003) are developed from images downloaded from the Internet of hourly precipitation patterns recorded by radar at the weather station at Halifax International Airport in Nova Scotia. These radar images are interpreted and transposed into encaustic paint with later works (YHZ Series 4) also synthesizing hints of corporate oil company logos into the visual mix.

The size and shape of each painting is determined by the chosen radar image. A subplot within Radar Paintings is an attempt to depart from painting strategies that adopt the rectangular canvas stretcher as a pictorial ‘window’ or material armature. As well, the omniscient point of view of radar and satellite systems, mapped territory and digitally imaged weather patterns becomes the subject matter which encapsulate how ‘landscape’ can be represented in a digitally constructed, connected, and scrutinized world.