Species Life

Zavisha Chromicz, Marlene Creates, Barbara Klunder, Jeanne Randolph, Nell Tenhaaf, Carol Wainio, Natalie Wood

group exhibition
June 12 - August 8, 2026

from Larch, Spruce, Fir, Birch, Hand, Blast Hole Pond Road, Newfoundland 2007–2026

The larch off the southeast corner of the house – the largest larch here. 2007 & 2018 from Larch, Spruce, Fir, Birch, Hand, Blast Hole Pond Road, Newfoundland 2007–2026

The fir below the path up the Tolt whose top half cracked off. 2007 & 2018 from Larch, Spruce, Fir, Birch, Hand, Blast Hole Pond Road, Newfoundland 2007–2026

The birch with shaggy bark in the clearing between the Rattling Brook Path and the bottom of the Tolt. 2007 & 2018 from Larch, Spruce, Fir, Birch, Hand, Blast Hole Pond Road, Newfoundland 2007–2026

Tortoise & the Heir (We are all descended from the rabbit)

Mother Load: The challenge of suturing the mitochondrial tear

Mother Load: The challenge of suturing the mitochondrial tear (detail)

installation view 25.3 Species Life 2026 installation view

installation view 26.3 Species Life 2026 installation view

installation view 34.3 Species Life 2026 installation view

installation view 35.3 Species Life 2026 installation view

installation view 38.3 Species Life 2026 installation view

Species Life
installation view , 2026

Paul Petro Contemporary Art is pleased to present two group exhibitions, Species Life and Standing Ground IV, Dreaming of You, that straddle the digital divide and offer composites for remembering the past, channelling history, and building futures.

Species Life takes its name from the title of a photo-based light-box work from 1989 by Nell Tenhaaf, produced through an InterAccess artist-run centre residency in Toronto in 1988 and using a TARGA video capture board and computer image manipulation. In that pre-internet time Tenhaaf was posing the question: how deep does social formation go when considering how humans are shaped? And this, before social media platforms and the spectre of AI.

In a decidedly analogue manner Zavisha Chromicz constructs the fibre-based work Mother Load: The challenge of suturing the mitochondrial tear in 2022 in an elaborate effort to stem the flow of intergenerational trauma. Natalie Wood's reconstructed cardboard Acoustic Warrior alludes to African oral traditions and the reverberations of (bass) culture through the Middle Passage to the streets of the Americas. Marlene Creates captures the passage of time as she photographs her hand on a tree in her forest, once as a black and white fibre-based silver print, and then eleven years later as a colour digital print.

Barbara Klunder's evolutionary oil paintings in burnished gold frames allude to a variety of primordial fauna and the cycles of life. Carol Wainio's painting And the small bird did sing #2 captures a boy experiencing a moment of wonderment while looking through time, and through slow viewing returns the viewer to that childhood state. And by summoning no less than Lucretius (c. 99-55 BCE) from De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things), Jeanne Randolph begins her new book, Nature Gives Me the Willies, with a quote from the Roman poet and philosopher, "in every direction everywhere there are on every side, above and below, through all the universe, no limits, and thus does truth radiate, and the essence of the deep shines clear."

Species Life features work by Zavisha Chromicz, Marlene Creates, Barbara Klunder, Jeanne Randolph, Nell Tenhaaf, Carol Wainio and Natalie Wood.

New publication launch and reading by Jeanne Randolph
Nature Gives Me the Willies
Saturday June 20, 1-3pm, reading at 2pm.
Join us as Jeanne Randolph reads from her new book Nature Gives Me the Willies at PPCA. Reserve a signed copy here.

Artists in Conversation on Saturday July 25
Join us for a conversation at 2pm with artists from Species Life Zavisha Chromicz, Barbara Klunder, Jeanne Randolph, Nell Tenhaaf and Natalie Wood. No RSVP required.

Further text forthcoming.

Species Life

Zavisha Chromicz, Marlene Creates, Barbara Klunder, Jeanne Randolph, Nell Tenhaaf, Carol Wainio, Natalie Wood

group exhibitionJune 12 - August 8, 2026

group exhibition
June 12 - August 8, 2026