The conceptual and sculptural practice of Alberta artist Jason de Haan highlights the diachronic density of nature and the physical world. Using an interdisciplinary approach that combines sculpture, collage, drawing, photography, video, and text, de Haan explores the archiving of time in planetary materiality and connects this deep time to that of cultural history. Symbolically dense and complex, his works reflect a fascination with mythology, science fiction, geology, and geographical sites imbued with forces at work below the threshold of perception.
Deeply heterogeneous and impossible to classify, Jason de Haan's work deliberately places itself in the flow of evolution, interrupting the passage of time with artistic gestures that resonate with romanticism, the sublime, and poetry. De Haan meticulously highlights the movement, transformation, resonance, or sparkle of things on a scale so microscopic that our senses are unable to perceive them. For de Haan, our ephemeral position within the epic dialogue of evolving time scales, coupled with natural and supernatural wonders, offers a productive space to reflect on the difficulty of perceiving the invisible and describing regimes of immeasurable distances.
Jason de Haan (b. 1981) received an MFA from Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson in 2015. His public art project Structure for Observing Atypical Flight has been permanently installed in Alberta, British Columbia, Yukon, and Mexico. Exhibitions have been held at Mackenzie Art Gallery Regina, Saskatchewan [with Miruna Drǎgan] (2025), Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Querétaro, Mexico [with Miruna Drǎgan and Warren McLachlan] (2022), Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver [with Miruna Drǎgan and Warren McLachlan] (2021), Clint Roenisch Gallery, Toronto (2018), Esker Foundation, Calgary (2017), De Fabriek, Eindhoven (2016); Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton (2016); MASS MoCA, North Adams (2016); Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Halifax (2014); Clint Roenisch Gallery, Toronto (2014); Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery (2014); Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Lethbridge (2012); and Museo de la Ciudad, Querétaro (2012). His work has been included in group exhibitions at Scrap Metal, Toronto (2014); Bond House Projects, London (2013); Oakville Galleries (2012); Nuit Blanche, Toronto (2011); MOLAF, Bergen (2011); and Kling & Bang Galleri, Reykjavik (2009). In 2012, de Haan was shortlisted for the Sobey Art Award, representing the Canadian Prairies and the North. His work has been reviewed in Canadian Art, Art in America, and Artforum.
