Self-guided tour of Rails End Gallery aka Haliburton Station – read: Rail Station Vernacular BLOG
CURRENT EXHIBITION runs until August 28.
A Reflection of the Past:
Arts and Labour is an exhibition by artist Garrett Gilbart presents salvaged automotive hoods, recovered from now-forested scrapyards and meticulously hand-carved with a plasma cutter. Each piece is intricately worked, suspended between decay and embellishment, resembling draped textiles or shrouds, with motifs drawn from the wallpaper designs of William Morris. Illuminated from behind, the works cast complex shadows that echo both the precision of industrial manufacturing and the intimacy of domestic ornamentation.
William Morris (1834–1896) the British designer, poet, essayist, and socialist, was a central figure in the Arts and Crafts movement; a late 19th-century response to industrialization that sought to reunite Art and Craft through enlightened labour and a respect of objects and those who make them. The movement celebrated craftsmanship, material integrity, and the social and spiritual value of meaningful work.
Referencing the Arts and Crafts ideals of dignity in labour and the elevation of process, these sculptures trace an arc from the mechanized textile mills of the 1860s to the abandoned factories blighting contemporary Rust Belt. The ornamental language of Morris is woven through the material remains of North America’s industrial decline, inviting reflection on the shifting role of work, industry, and the handmade in modern life.
It was during the same period that the railway arrived and opened the Canadian North to resource extraction, emigration schemes and the industrial age.
