The Tom Thomson Art Gallery (TOM) will present a unique landscape photography exhibition, The Geography of Ancestry, featuring local favourite, Jeff Suchak. The exhibition opens at 2 p.m. on Sunday January 14, 2018 and is on view until April 30, 2018.

This exhibition beautifully combines innovative work with fascinating and intimate aspects of the Grey Bruce region's geography.

Jeff is a contemplative photographer who continues to work exclusively with film in both medium and 35mm formats. He describes his process as "documenting reverence, practicing the wild." His approach has been informed by poets and Traditional Peoples. Jeff recognizes the land as sacred, with an understanding that our relationship with the land is a partnership, a kinship predicated on gratitude and reverence.

The importance of myth is another influence in Jeff's approach to image making. Jeff envisions the landscape as the "cradle of mythic memory."

Jeff will tell you he "comes from a place where the river catches fire." He witnessed at age six a branch of the Calumet River literally on fire, an image that would remain with him and later influence his deep connection to the natural environment. While attending the University of Windsor he visited Grey and Bruce Counties. It was love at first sight; an affair that is now nearly 50 years old.

The large painterly images in The Geography of Ancestry provide an opportunity to be in relationship, to feel awe and interconnectedness with the land, and possibly an experience of transcendence.

Jeff's website is http://mythiclandscape.com

source: media release