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graduating in Fine Art from the University of Guelph in 1995,
Rath has been pursuing artistic projects in a variety of international
venues. His installations and paintings demonstrate an important
sensitivity to materials, and explore the interplay of the
subject and the materials, where technique is as important
as intent. Of a metaphoric nature, rich with incident and
intimation, these paintings bring light to the range of patterns
that humans rely upon to comprehend inner and outer environments.
His paintings suggest echoes of recognizable forms that emerge
from layers of texture and colour to create an elemental atmosphere,
drawing on botanical and geological motifs, maps, and cultural
iconography. Underscored within this aesthetic, is an address
of social ecology, of historical passage, of organic and theoretical
growth systems.
His
installation art is about the vulnerable yet resilient nature
of life, seeking conceptual and formal relationships of memory,
renewal, presence/absence, history and time. Rath looks for
enigmatic fragments of discarded objects, items with an engraved
or obscured past, and alters and arranges them for unexpected
associations. His poetic constructions contain a charmed and
intrinsic potency, placing the viewer somewhere between contemplation
and amusement.
Rath
has exhibited across Canada, and internationally in Australia,
India, Germany, Russia, Britain and the US. He was included
in the BC Festival of the Arts in Surrey, and has been included
in shows in Toronto, New York, Berlin, London, Vancouver,
and Victoria, and received a BC Arts Council Grant. His work
has attracted the attention of the Governor-General, and he
was included in the survey book “New Art International” published
by Book Art Press, New York. He has also been featured on
CBC radio on various programs.
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