The weather is one of the factors that may have an impact on the countries’ economies. There are two main hedging ways against unexpected weather conditions: weather derivatives and weather insurances. During the last two decades, companies started to use weather derivatives against weather issues, especially in the energy and agriculture sectors. Starting from weather derivatives’ first launch, their transaction volumes at the exchange and over-the-counter markets have increased. In addition to the increasing dependency of the economies on the weather, providing the weather derivative contracts with a reasonable premium amount is another reason which helps to have this positive trend. Since weather derivatives have similar parameters and rules with classical financial derivatives, it is possible to use the same pricing approaches for financial and weather derivatives. (excerpt from the Journal Wires Climate Change: Julius Bems and Caner Aiden)

Landscape painting as a genre, remains an excellent place to sift and filter cultural detritus while debating nature’s subordination to the map of the built world and modern civilization. Is there only room for a domesticated, threatened landscape, however wild? Can endeavor and conquest be distinguished? These paintings are an attempt to dramatize and question the modern romance of adventure into the natural and alien unknown. They are also an attempt to create a visual lexicon of the aesthetics of what I now refer to as Sublime Warming; the terrific beauty of our climate systems as they spiral out of control.

This show marks the 20th anniversary of my 2003 show Weatherbroker which featured landscape paintings, mostly sky, with titles like 10% more cloud. For me the last twenty years have been a visual exploration of the aesthetics of weather, erosion and the potential sublime beauty of climate change. The working definition of the sublime I use combines grandeur, incalculable beauty, awe, and terror. The working title Sublime Warming allows me to explore the colonial roots of painting, visual adventures in Canada’s North as well as document the aesthetic developments in our land and atmosphere. This isn’t a new concept for artists: Munch and the Impressionists painted skies that were altered by the 1883 Volcanic Eruption of Krakatoa and there are many other examples throughout history of painting these effects, although clearly, mankind is now a central figure in contributing to these changes. The reclamation of land and architecture by natural forces is producing a root fear in people of the veracity of savage wild forms. At this point in history, it is easy to picture a slow but steady march towards the reclamation of our projects by more tenacious projections. We may still find solace in Nature, but its relentless shifting and negotiation of the interface is feeding a growing collective anxiety. This is the reason I find the metaphors of the fringe, the edge and the sublime so appropriate right now as we slip in our negotiations of this reclamation project.

One thing that did emerge for me in the process of wrestling the muddy materials of paint for this show was a sense of germinating hope. Adaptive change and evolution seem to always be able to steer the earth and its contents into areas of new growth. In my imagination those areas were nascent and wild, and I hope that I have given you all here a glimpse into our colourful collective weather futures.

PS

Some Things that didn’t exist since Weatherbroker (also since the Toronto Maple Leafs won a playoff series): iPhone YouTube Instagram Twitter TikTok Snapchat WhatsApp Twitch Bitcoin Gmail iPad Etsy Reddit Netflix streaming Amazon Prime Google Maps Spotify Shopify Airbnb Uber Pinterest Chrome Messenger Oculus VR Dropbox DoorDash DraftKings ChatGPT Zoom AirPods Alexa Ethereum Fortnite Tesla Model S Disney+ Apple Watch Tinder Telegram Slack Bumble Canva Cameo Venmo Discord Dogecoin App Store Nest Lyft Peloton Square Chromebooks Apple Music