Published in 1719, Daniel Defoe’s The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner, is generally regarded as the first English novel. Its immediate success might be attributed to its documentary, confessional style of narration. The receptivity by the general public to tales of shipwreck already had the Alexander Selkirk account as a classic example. Lack of lighthouses and the accurate mapping of shoals made naval disasters inevitable in this age.
(Note to reader: Shipwreck article is in the early stages of preparation at this point. It is yet to be completed.)
The Luminaria in San Antonio edition of dArt International Magazine (2008), featuring Bill Fitzgibbons Then San Antonio Mayor Phil Hardberger photographed at a 2008 Luminaria event by Steve Rockwell. The Mayor married Linda Morgan in 1968. She had been the “miracle girl” survivor of the Andrea DoriaJouko reser till Canada, October 1, 1957, Lennart Hansson scrap book page with two of his photos of Jouko Salomaa at the train station in Grangesberg, Sweden, taken the day before Jouko boarded the SAL ocean liner Stockholm in the Copenhagen to Halifax, Canada Atlantic crossingThe Swedish American Line ship The Stockholm photographed after its 1956 collision with the Andrea Doria in Nantucket SoundMovie poster for Luis Bunel’s 1954 Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. It was screened a year or so before the 1957 Atlantic crossing by Jouko Salomaa at Cassels movie theater in Grangesberg, Sweden
Sample Daniel Defoe Robinson Crusoe text: In this distress the mate of our vessel laid hold of the boat, and with the help of the rest of the men got her slung over the ship’s side; and getting all into her, let go, and committed ourselves, being eleven in number, to God’s mercy and the wild sea; for though the storm was abated considerably, yet the sea ran dreadfully high upon the shore, and might be well called den wild zee, as the Dutch call the sea in a storm.
And now our case was very dismal indeed; for we all saw plainly that the sea went so high that the boat could not live, and that we should be inevitably drowned. As to making sail, we had none, nor if we had could we have done anything with it; so we worked at the oar towards the land, though with heavy hearts, like men going to execution; for we all knew that when the boat came near the shore she would be dashed in a thousand pieces by the breach of the sea. However, we committed our souls to God in the most earnest manner; and the wind driving us towards the shore, we hastened our destruction with our own hands, pulling as well as we could towards land.
What the shore was, whether rock or sand, whether steep or shoal, we knew not. The only hope that could rationally give us the least shadow of expectation was, if we might find some bay or gulf, or the mouth of some river, where by great chance we might have run our boat in, or got under the lee of the land, and perhaps made smooth water. But there was nothing like this appeared; but as we made nearer and nearer the shore, the land looked more frightful than the sea.
Scanned image by Philip V. Allingham. The illustrator presents a convincing panorama of the wrecked merchantman off the coast of a remote island off the South American coast (left), with several small figures (presumably, one of them Crusoe). London publisher: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, 1863-64Jouko Salomaa, Robinson Crusoe and Friday, 1957, ink on paper. Gifted by Jouko to classmate Lennart Hansson before Jouko’s ocean departure
Christopher Rouleau, 2026, 12 Brilliant Colors, Latex, acrylic and enamel on canvas, 54″ × 72″
The message in Christopher Rouleau’s “12 Brilliant Colors” exhibition is direct. If you don’t get the picture, he spells it out in two languages, each ‘brilliant color’ numbered from one to twelve. The charm of the artist’s work at the Red Head Gallery in Toronto is the absence of ambiguity. Rouleau’s ego never gets in the way of his painted intent. By not wearing his angry, tormented artist tuque, the “Selling of Canada” paintings strike us directly where we live – a “double-double” caffeine-induced sugar rush from a Tim Hortons cup of coffee.
Christopher Rouleau, 2026, Tons, latex and acrylic on plywood, 24 x 18 x 1/2 inch; Ketchup Wars, latex and acrylic on canvas, bubble mailer filling, 36 x 18 x 2 inches; Loss, latex and enamel on canvas-wrapped box, 18 x 18 x 18 inches
To a Canadian, each meticulously-rendered image is a mental billboard along the highway of Canada’s history. As an immigrant kid on my first day at Golden Avenue Public School in South Porcupine, my own pack of “12 Brilliant Colors” landed on my desk on the first day of school. That’s how I remember it – cellophane-wrapped pencil crayons with a picture of a snow-covered log home below the word “Laurentian,” loosely-lettered in red.
The “Selling of Canada” has continued unabated since its confederation in 1867. In fact, even before there was a Canada there was Rupert’s Land. French fur traders Radison and Groseilliers learned that the best furs were found around the “frozen sea” of Hudson Bay. Since the French governor refused to back their plan to set up a trading post on the Bay, one thing led to another, until the fur trading duo got an audience with England’s Charles II through Prince Rupert, the king’s cousin. And the rest is history: the “Selling of Canada” began in earnest by the Hudson’s Bay Company with an act of government in 1689. “Made Beaver” became not just a brand but a commercial trading standard.
Christopher Rouleau’s “Selling Canada” installation view
Rouleau’s “12 Brilliant Colors” are rooted in the beauty of the land itself, here specifically the Quebec Laurentians, a crayon for every month of the year. A century ago, the Group of Seven placed a national stamp over the color and texture over Canada’s landscape. Influenced importantly by Tom Thomson, the Group expanded northward through Algoma beyond Lake Superior to the Rockies and the Arctic. To the east Quebec’s Charlevoix and Laurentian regions supplied the drama of shoreline and mountain. Branded into the consciousness these images in oil served as advertisement readymades for Canadian National and Pacific railways to sell travel across “Scenic Canada.” If going by car, vacationers might as well ride on “Canadian Tires.”
Christopher Rouleau, 2026, HBCanadian Tire, Latex and acrylic on canvas, 30″ × 60″
While Rouleau’s “Selling Canada” works are admittedly nostalgic, tapping into decades of collective memory, their insinuation casts a deeper, more complex shadow. As hieroglyphs of national identity, by virtue of their visual familiarity, the viewer is rendered essentially defenceless to their impact. Much like the work of Jeff Koons, Rouleau’s paintings here are “critic-proof.” To whatever might be said about his show, an apt response by the artist might simply be, “I intended it.”
Christopher Rouleau’s “Selling Canada” installation view
To some extent, Rouleau even seems not to be “wedded” to the paintings on display. “Selling Canada” may be read as a sample documentation of slices from our environment, mechanically reproduced. As the artist’s “Christopher” business card reads: “lettering, signs, graphic design,” implying that if the viewer were not impressed with the paintings display, he would be happy to provide ones more suitable to their taste.
Selling Canada: Guest Artist Christopher Rouleau, May 27 – June 20, 2026 at the Red Head Gallery, 401 Richmond Street West, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5V 3A8
Mildred I. Washington Art Gallery/Dutchess Community College Todd Bartel, Curator
The term ‘Uncollage’ uses the prefix ‘un’ to denote when collage is not glued physically, but is glued intellectually. Uncollage – Seamless Unison examines the neologism by showcasing various practices of imagery fusion and providing comparative examples of cut-and-paste collage demonstrating the differences between physical gluing and immaterial gluing across a wide range of media.
Budd Hopkins, Collage for Mahler’s Castle, 1970, collaged paper, paint, 16 x 20 inches (photo Todd Bartel)Budd Hopkins, Study for Mahler’s Castle, 1972, acrylic on canvas, 36 x 53 inches (photo Todd Bartel)
I first used the term ‘Uncollage’ in 1998 to describe paintings that depend on image collection and are painted without physical additions glued to the surface—such as the work of Archibaldo, Grandma Moses, Mark Tansey, and Julie Heffernan, all of whom I have also published articles on. All too often, what comes to mind when the word ‘collage’ is uttered is glued paper, but collage is so much more. Collage is an operation that does not require paper or glue, and can be appreciated any time a creative process involves composite incorporation. I presented my thesis at the first annual Kolaj Fest, in New Orleans in the summer of 2018, a multi-day festival & symposium about contemporary collage and its role in art, culture, and society hosted by Kolaj magazine. After that, I expanded the concept in a series of 4 articles, published by Kolaj magazine in 2019 and another four articles since then, as well as written several exhibition essays for shows in the U.S., Portugal and Spain, which has led me to assemble the essays in a forthcoming book, Uncollage & Immaterial Glue — the Collected Essays of Todd Bartel that will be available in early July, 2026.
Julie Heffernan, Self-Portrait as Growth, 1994, oil on canvas, 55 ¼ x 69 x 1 ¾ inches (photo Todd Bartel)
Uncollage—Seamless Unison assembles the art of thirty-one emerging, well-established, and historically notable artists, including the Abstract Expressionist painter Budd Hopkins (1931 – 2011). Hopkins, who wrote the influential essay, Modernism And The Collage Aesthetic, often made facsimile collage studies for his abstract paintings, and examples of each are the first works visitors encounter inside the gallery. The show includes paintings by Julie Heffernan, Bo Joseph, Fern Apfel, Brian Bishop, D. Dominick Lombardi, Ginnie Gardiner, Talin Megherian, Justin Richel, Denise Shaw, and Amy Talluto, who all fuse collage-based strategies to import and juxtapose collected imagery. Lombardi’s painting is noteworthy for repurposing a previously “completed” painting with complementary stylistic additions.
Ginnie Gardiner, Interlusion 45, 2022, oil on linen, 40 x 60 inches (photo Ginnie Gardiner)
The exhibition includes several examples of trompe l’oeil drawing and painting, including works by Brian Bishop, Laura Christensen, Ruth Marten, Leo Sousa, and Amy Talluto, and a trompe l’oeil sculpture by Justin Richel. In all of these pieces, the genre is enhanced by the incorporation of ideas, brought into the work, if not known references to other artists’ works. Similarly, Julie Blankenship, Christensen and Marten explore ‘Uncollage’ through altered readymade, employing various drawn and painted enhancements.
Amy Talluto, Alchemical Wasteland, 2021, oil on canvas, 40 x 50 inches (photo James Petrozzello)
Uncollage—Seamless Unison showcases several works that involve image transfer processes, including a Xerographic print on vintage paper by Michael Oatman, a hand-transferred Xerographic photo presented as an “original photograph” by Roma Megherian Bartel, and a painting with multiple acrylic gel-medium transfers by Denise Shaw.
Denise Shaw, Targeting, 2021, acrylic, photo transfer on linen, 60 x 30 inches (photo Katie Zaptka)
The exhibit highlights an iconic multi-negative gelatin silver print by Jerry Uelsmann (1934 – 2022), whose analog work may be said to have anticipated Photoshop, and, emerging photographer Max Labelle, who photographs cutout photographed images of quotidian objects in real-world settings, which confuse flattened depictions of real objects in actual spaces. The show counterbalances these analog photographic processes with the works of veteran digital collage artists Fran Forman and Maggie Taylor, as well as the work of Leslie Fry, Samplerman (Yvan Guillo), Wendy Seller, and Rowan Buffington, whose hybrid piece provides a blended example of analog and digital applications of collage.
Jerry Uelsmann, Untitled, 1991, gelatin silver print, 3 negatives – sky ripples, rock, background, 14 x 11 inches (digital scan of original photo Jerry Uelsmann)Maggie Taylor, Happiness, 2015, digital collage, archival inkjet print, 15 x 15 inches (courtesy of the artist)
Also included in the show are several sculptures that more or less conceal their composite origins, such as D. Dominick Lombardi’s recycled refuse sculpture and Justin Richel’s stretched-canvas trompe l’oeil brick. There is also a objet trouvé bicycle by Jack Massey, an assisted readymade with an intellectual coupling to a well-known work by Pablo Picasso, as well as the conceptual sculptures of Darryl Lauster and Bo Joseph that expand the neologism into the time-honored practices of lost wax bronze sculpture.
Bo Joseph, Caput Mortuum: Create Yourself from Darkness, 2018, bronze, 20 ¼ x 24 ⅝ x 11 inches, Collection of Eliane van Reesema (photo Bo Joseph)D. Dominick Lombardi, CC 113 UC (The Impossibility of a Skinned Knee), 2021, found objects, sand, papier-mâché, gesso, acrylic medium, 11 ½ x 12 x 9 inches, photo courtesy of the artist
The show also includes examples of static and moving AI image generation by artists Joann, Will Close, and Máximo Tuja, as well as a multimedia installation by James Andrew Scott that blends analog drawing with pixelated digital video, using an array of four 4 x 4-foot LED panels to display looped video imagery incorporating abstracted versions of many of the works in the exhibition.
Máximo Tuja / Max-o-matic, 126 sextillion collages (A Microcosm), 2022-24, Digital Files Created with Custom-made Generative Art Software, Running Time: 120 min, (photo Máximo Tuja and Pardon Collection)
The unexpected diversity of media and imagery showcased in Uncollage—Seamless Unison reveals the term’s inclusivity, which credits collage in places not often considered collage-based. Máximo Tuja (Argentina/Spain, a.k.a. Max-o-matic), one of the creative forces behind The Weird Show, an independent platform dedicated to exploring and redefining contemporary collage since 2010, and an artist featured in Uncollage – Seamless Unison, described the concept this way: “Uncollage reminds us that the art of collage is not confined to tangible materials but extends into the realm of the immaterial. It highlights the versatility of collage as an artistic practice, allowing artists to explore and combine various elements, whether physical or conceptual, to create entirely new and meaningful compositions.”
Rowan Buffington, Fin, Rites of Passage series, 2024, digital collage (printed and assembled on vintage and photographic papers), 5 x 7 inches (photo courtesy of the artist)
The unofficial first exhibition of Uncollage paintings appeared at the Knoxville Museum of Art, where I was invited to peruse the museum’s online catalog of holdings and select half a dozen works from the collection that exemplified the concept for inclusion in the museum’s Currents exhibition as part of 2021 Kolaj Live Knoxville. I gave tours of the exhibition and spoke about the differing strategies of collage and uncollage. There was no invitation, title, or museum didactic for that show, which makes the Mildred I. Washington Art Gallery show the first of its kind. Unlike the unofficial show, the official version showcases a much wider breadth of the concept.
Uncollage – Seamless Unison is one of ten satellite exhibitions presented by the Transforming Collage Hudson Valley Exhibition Series this summer. The exhibitions are organized in conjunction with Making Meaning: A Collage Symposium, taking place July 22–24 at the Vassar Institute for the Liberal Arts in Poughkeepsie, NY. From their website, “This important gathering celebrates the evolving language of collage and the role of contemporary artists in shaping cultural dialogue, experimentation, and community connection.” There, I will present a slideshow about Uncollage and the exhibition at the Mildred I. Washington Art Gallery as one of the presenters of the Making Meaning Collage Symposium. Both the exhibition catalog and my forthcoming book, featuring the collection of my Uncollage essays, will be available at the symposium and on Lulu.com. Interested individuals can register to attend the symposium at: https://www.transformingcollage.com
The artist’s reception and gallery talk for Uncollage – Seamless Unison is scheduled for Friday, July 24, 3-6 PM. The exhibition runs from June 29 to July 31st, 2026 Making Meaning, organized and directed by Andrea Burgay & Monica Church, is from July 22 to July 24, 2026.
Gertrude Kearns in her studio by Joseph Hartman – showing works in the current body of work at RCMI
If you have never been to the Royal Canadian Military Institute on University Avenue in Toronto, you must visit and take in the phenomenal exhibition by Canada’s foremost contemporary war artist, Gertrude Kearns.
This exhibition, straight from showing at the Embassy of Canada in Washington DC, is a selection from two decades of work 2006-2025. Drawings, paintings, text/image prints as ‘propaganda-play posters’ capture the humanity and courage behind Canadian Armed Forces individuals who have commanded and form the military.
General Wayne Eyre 2025, Chief of the Defence Staff, Feb 2021 – June 2024, acrylic on canvas, 137.2 x 106.7 cm / 54 x 42 in
Kearns’ interest in conflict work began thirty years ago. Since then, she has worked diligently, both officially and as an independent artist. What began as a curiosity about Canadian defence progressed into years of research into Canadian Armed Forces missions. As a result, valuable contacts and relationships were steadily built on trust and respect with each sitter. Her artistic skill captures the essence of these dedicated individuals. We see pride, honour, strength and sometimes weakness, even the anti-hero in these faces. How much decision-making, questions about morality, emotional conflict and physical hardship, PTSD, have these soldiers experienced? Who are these individuals that have given of themselves so selflessly? What have they seen and lived through? What is their message? Is there one?
Just Doing It (Major-General J Carignan), 2020, Chief of the Defence Staff, Archival pigment print on Kodak Professional Inkjet Gloss Paper with matte film, 152 x 111.5 cm / 60 x 44 in
The Gulf War of 1990-91 initially stirred Kearns’ interest in conflict work. From there she began to examine the Yugoslav Wars of 1991-99, considering the pressures on society and ethnic cleansing. The inability of UN peacekeepers to prevent the Rwandan Genocide in 1994 and the impact of that failure created a series of haunting work featuring Canada’s General, Romeo Dallaire in 2001-2.
As a war/military artist, this journey led to Kearns’ admission to a training exercise at Petawawa, Ontario in 2004. Later on she was given the opportunity of real-life experiences, embedded in Afghanistan in 2006. It was during this time, about to travel in an armoured vehicle preparing to leave Kandahar City, a suicide bomber struck the convoy ahead. Among the ten wounded were three Canadian soldiers. A diplomat and two other civilians were killed. After the wounded soldiers were brought back to base, Kearns helped clean the infirmary. Needless to say, this experience affected Kearns profoundly.
O URGENT SEAS (Vice-Admiral Angus Topshee), 2025, Commander, Royal Canadian Navy, Archival pigment print on Kodak Professional Inkjet Gloss Paper with matte film, 167.5 x 118 cm / 66 x 46.5 in
She has worked steadily and tirelessly producing work, giving us a glimpse into a world that many of us will never see or experience. Lucky are we that are safe and sound. Concluding with more recent counter-terrorism, sovereignty and global security works, Kearns poignantly reminds us that war is never really that far away.
SAVED:FOR WHAT?, 2011, Unidentified coalition SOF, Afghanistan, Archival pigment print on Hahnemuhle ultra smooth paper, 152 x 101.5 cm / 60 x 40 in 1/1
The Royal Canadian Military Institute is not open to the public, but Sunday afternoon tours of the exhibition led by Kearns herself, RCMI Honorary War Artist, begin on May 24 between 2:30-3:30 pm. Sunday tours continue May 31, in June on the 14th, 21st, and 28th; July 5th, 12th, 19th, and 26th. There is a tour on Sunday, August 2, 2026, the last day of the show. Address: 426 University Avenue, just south of Dundas, and the TTC St Patrick subway station.
Xinyu Liu, a multidexterous artist engaging with a variety of media, exhibits her work in a solo presentation at Art Cake in Brooklyn, titled, “Fool’s Hour.” Liu conceives of her body of work as revolving around the experience of a person going to an amusement park or a casino, where the busy sense of time within a 9 to 5 work schedule is lost. What makes someone a fool, and what is the meaning behind the title, ‘fool’s hour?’ Liu is catching on the subtle difference between how we label ourselves and others, as winners and losers, as rich or poor, and as a fool and non-fool. There are many contradictory considerations and occurrences that go into deciding how someone might be a fool. For example, the exorbitant use of money might make someone a fool because s/he or they are wasting their financial resources, yet such a use might also count as a sign of wealth and thereby not foolish. Power relations are reversible, depending on the context and the signifying traits.
In “Fool’s Hour” (2025), we see a circular structure encasing segments of a rollercoaster ride, made in transparent acrylic. Numbers flip between 6 and 9, and a clown’s hat with three arms carries spherical tips on two of the arms but not the third one. What the work shows is a contained sense of time, in which time ceases to go forward linearly but condenses into a cyclical form. This is the Fool’s Hour, in which the subject is free to be a fool of the capitalist system that wants to extract as much money from the subject as possible.
“Time is not lost, it is freed” (2025) is a wood-carved sculpture in the form of some kind of casing for a glasses or pen, a jewelry box, or a miniature burial vault. The phrase looks like an old proverb, but it is a reaction to Benjamin Franklin’s belief that “lost time is never found again.” What we must conclude from this train of logic is that time is not lost, but it must be freed and wrestled away through a match or struggle with the capitalist system that seeks to deprive us of time. This is the question that each and every person living within the reality of a capitalist world must deal with. To be a fool or not to be, that is the question.
Xinyu Liu, Time Is Not Lost, It Is Freed (2025), hand-carved wood, 6.5 x 1.5 x 4 inches
Xinyu Liu: Fool’s Hour on April 17-May 10, 2026 at Artcake, 214 40th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11232
