Southern Lights presents selections from an ongoing project by Canadian photographer, Finn O’Hara, that uniquely engages with the Georgian Bay region of the Canadian north.
Artist Statement
The windswept pines, rocky islands, and rugged shores of Georgian Bay, longstanding symbols of the Canadian north, are iconic references to the landscapes that inspired the Group of Seven. This series extends the collective memory of those paintings, reminding us that the very idea of losing these vistas should send a shiver down the spine of every Canadian. Yet today, Ontario’s government continues to trade public land to foreign corporations, placing even the sites where Tom Thomson and A.Y. Jackson once painted under considerable threat of development.
Southern Lights is inspired by the surveyor’s self-levelling laser, a tool used to divide undeveloped land. Its projected grid cuts against the natural world, casting an unnatural glow across the trees, sometimes leaving an aurora-like vapour that suggests destruction already set in motion. These compositions are 100% created in-camera, without any interventions beyond standard colour-correction practices. Created in Georgian Bay, with the support of the Georgian Bay Land Trust and local guides, these photographs aim to spark a national conversation about how we steward our resources, protect wild spaces, and honour the landscapes that continue to define Canadian identity.
-Finn O’Hara
Finn O’Hara is an international award-winning Canadian photographer and director based in Toronto, ON. Working globally across sports, fine art and branded storytelling, past clients have included leading brands such as Converse, Adidas, Nike, Coca-Cola, and editorial work with The New York Times Magazine and Vogue among others. His fine-art photography is held in the permanent collections of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, the Scotiabank Fine Art Collection, the Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and numerous private collections in Canada, the United States, England and Brazil.
