Onya McCausland: On Her Work

Online Talk for MIMA

On Monday 21 February at 6.30pm, join artist Onya McCausland online as she introduces her practice and work commissioned as part of the Chemical City exhibition at MIMA. 

 

Register for the free talk here.

 

Onya McCausland’s 13-meter painting, Saltburn 54°34 07.37 N 0°57 42.87 W (2021), proposes a new approach to ecological recovery. The paint is manufactured by the artist from recycled ochre from a mine water treatment site in Saltburn, Tees Valley. The work asks us to consider what should happen with former industrial sites and proposes an imaginative and regenerative use of a toxic material.

 

McCausland’s practice includes working with TurningLandscape CIC on the sustainable production of paint to explore environmentalism that considers economic cycles of materials and humans. The work addresses the materials and materiality of how painting and paint relates to the Earth (as being made from chemical elements and processes) and human cultures, and the relation of materials, communities and traditions that relate to specific sites and places.

 

Chemical City is a large thematic exhibition on the legacies of chemicals production in the Tees Valley. Artists’ painting, sculpture and film trace the impacts of twentieth century manufacturing on people and places.

February 21, 2022