Weather Conditions exhibit
January 27, 2026
Paul Walde: Weather Conditions
Thurs Jan 8 to Sat April 11, 2026
Legacy Downtown | 630 Yates St.
Lekwungen Territory
Paul Walde: Weather Conditions features two video installations: Of Weather (for Geoff Hendricks), 2018-2024, and Tom Thomson Centennial Swim, 2017, by interdisciplinary artist and University of Victoria Visual Arts Professor Paul Walde. Each artwork documents site-specific performances accompanied by original soundtracks also created by Walde. Prominent within the exhibition are large-scale photographic prints of cloudscapes from Of Weather (for Geoff Hendricks). Both installations transport weather conditions from their apparent distance in the natural world into the immediacy of the gallery space.
Walde's artworks also pay homage to two art historical figures. Of Weather (for Geoff Hendricks) references the work of Geoffrey Hendricks (1931-2018), a member of Fluxus, who was nicknamed "Cloudsmith" for his long-term interest in depicting the sky and specifically clouds. Tom Thomson Centennial Swim of 2017 memorializes the life and death of Tom Thomson (1877-1917), a canonical figure in the history of Canadian landscape painting. In 1917, Thomson drowned while canoeing on Canoe Lake in Algonquin Park, Ontario. The significance of his art historical legacy is also signalled by the inclusion of two original artworks by Tom Thomson.