Tides brings together a series of found objects related to change and navigation — slow and fast, seasonal and episodic. Bricks that wash up on shore, transformed from sturdy building blocks to worn pebbles. Water trapped in ice for 10,000 years. A capsule that can sustain you for 30+ days on the open ocean. The smallest bone of the largest mammals body, developed over millennia for seeing in sound under water. These objects reflect Julie Oh’s new surroundings in rural Newfoundland, far from the Prairie environs of her formative years. Being in this new place challenged the limits of her practice, which often draws on source materials from familiar, urban environments. This body of work reflects a year of re-orientation, of finding a new way to work, from a different place. The simple daily act of returning to one fixed point on earth, the beach closest to her house, to look for bricks was a way of grounding. An act, arbitrary at first, that formed a path forward. She combed through the “Marine” section in NL Classifieds, waiting until warmth arrived, and found other things to salvage, things that led the way. The belief in, and pursuit of, the next object remains constant. Together, the works in Tides continue Oh’s exploration of the emotional and conceptual power of objects. Objects that comfort, attract, puzzle, guide and resonate with our interior states and searches for meaning.

The artist acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for this project.