There is a wall of black stone holding back uranium trailings at Elliot Lake. Mister Tahti is a small, blurry figure on the edge of the photo. Overtop are smears of beige, brown, and tan.
In a white-washed building beside the DuPont train tracks, with a whiff of 180 Projects, her Sault Ste Marie studio and gallery space wafting off of the industial sculpture at the middle of the room, Andrea Pinheiro greets friends and receives visitors to the reception of her showing this month at the Cooper Cole Dupont gallery.
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> > The indescribable sculpture, three large black and white works, two rusted rural photographs overlaid with gestural paint, and a pair of photographic interpretations of the sculpture, made more dense with mineralogical and textural inserts and overlays, make up the showing. Pinheiro is a powerhouse, a professor with Algoma university's fine arts program, well versed in numerous media and in the social/symbological history of both her materials and locale.
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> > Double-framing and tastefully layered photographic effects empower the black and white set, crystalline textures sprawling across shots of imagery from botanical and mining sources, as studio space at 180 becomes the site for Pinheiro's musings on the earth, technology, human achievement, waste, and hubris. The spectre of nuclear madness looms over much of her recent sculpture and photography, Rooster Rock and other northern Ontario sites having made a notable impression on her appreciation of the land she lives on.
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> > With pop-star looks and a friendly, laid-back, sensitively incisive manner, she catches up with the Toronto crowd. Pinheiro has been exhibiting, at least while I've known her, in New York, Vancouver, the Soo and beyond. Having built 180 Projects with Devin Alexander out of the old MJs Second Hand warehouse on Gore Street in the Soo, she's living what seems to be the dream, juggling that volatile and all-consuming balance of personal practice, career, and paying work, jogging to keep her mind and body focused, helping Algoma Fine Arts transition into their new location in the old paper mill.
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> > The grit and flair of Pinheiro's pieces reminds me of my great aunt Dena's work, which I suppose speaks to an inheritance from and continuation of the generation of Judy Chicago et al. In fact, Andrea keeps introducing me as the cousin? nephew? of Dena's daughter Leah Decter, my mother's cousin, the first artist to show at 180 Projects, and Nora toured that sprawling building in Sault Ste Marie long before I ran the Café down the street.
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> > Andrea's a player for her insight, drive, and indefatigable effort, and a huge part of the progressive arts in Sault Ste Marie. Check out this sampling of her works while it's here, noon-six at 1134 Dupont just east of Dufferin.
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