Cross Cut: Folk Songs of Early Ontario features a series of 24 linocuts created by visual artist Rob Niezen. The series reflects on the narrative of the songs with a contemporary perspective by applying the concept of ‘crosscutting’.

Crosscutting is a technique borrowed from film editing and used to illustrate a narrative action that happens in several places at the same time, or in one place at different times. In creating his artwork Rob Niezen uses both the traditional method of lino-carving, and contemporary and experimental ways of mark making, including laser engraving, etching and collage; going against the grain, or ‘cross cutting’, as it were.

The exhibit aims to connect our recent history and today’s society, and the issues we face as citizens of Ontario and Canada, and invites to reflect on what’s happening with us and around us. Superficially things have changed, but the human conditions now seem not that different from 100 or 200 years ago. Has life improved, or is progress only on a materialistic level? Have we learned from our history, or does it always repeat itself? Folk songs make global issues accessible to everyone, as they are created and sung by real people telling real human stories.

About the Artist:

Rob Niezen is a painter, printmaker and illustrator, who is partly self taught, and studied at Vrije Akademies in The Hague and Delft, Netherlands (drawing and painting), at the Art School of Peterborough (painting), and at the Haliburton School of the Arts (printmaking).

In printmaking he creates narrative works, experimenting primarily with linocuts, including reduction prints. Current work includes his ‘Heads & Tales’ series that combines linoprint, blind emboss, collage (stamps), and text. In 2018 he was one of the selected artists included in Roll-O-Matic, Public Acts of Printmaking, as part of ArtsWeek Peterborough. His oil paintings have been shown seven solo exhibitions—three in 2019. He has participated in over two dozen group shows, and in over thirty juried exhibitions. His studio has been a stop on the Kawartha Autumn Studio Tour, juried by the Art Gallery of Peterborough, since 2010.

In 2015, Peterborough County awarded Rob Niezen a Leadership in Arts & Culture Recognition Award. He was a board member at the Art School of Peterborough for six years—three years as chair—and is still involved as a volunteer in marketing the school— and an elected member of the Ontario Society of Artists. He was born in The Hague, the Netherlands, and lives and works in Douro, Ontario, Canada.