Ligia explores immigration and belonging, capturing the landscapes of memory and the way familiar forms emerge unexpectedly in new places. Her photography and poetry reflect the pull of two homes and the quiet search for grounding in vast, open spaces, while abstract imagery transforms the human body into a reflection of the land—mirroring glaciers, mountain ridges, and shifting identities. Julia Knowlden examines the duality of wild and human spaces, revealing the traces we leave behind and our deep connections with the natural world. Through oil paintings and found-object sculptures, Julia invites viewers to witness the delicate balance between human presence and nature’s unseen networks, calling for a renewed sense of kinship and environmental responsibility. Together, their work highlights the tension between familiarity and distance, connection and solitude, and the search for belonging in a world where we are both here and elsewhere, separate yet deeply intertwined.
Within Duality by Julia Knowlden and Ligia
Presenting: 'TRACES' by Julia Knowlden and 'VIAJE PARALELO' by Ligia
March 1 - April 6, 2025
FREE
Wednesday, March 12 at 6 p.m.
Julia’s art practice is focused on communicating empathy, environmental awareness, and personal growth through Fine Art objects. She combines art and science for a fresh take on different issues. The more we explore the realm of the psyche, the better we understand ourselves as individuals. The more we learn about nature, the more likely we are to care for its survival.
Julia believes the process of healing begins on the individual level. As we grow an awareness of ourselves and our reactions to the external world, we unpack the reasons behind our own behaviours and how we relate to the world around us. She hopes to captivate viewers on the complexity of the subjects and their interconnection in the web of life, finding balance between representing them accurately and incorporating a sense of mysticism. The paintings introduce a vantage point depicting elements from a non-ordinary perspective. Using colour and surrealism, Julia presents visionary art qualities showing the more-than-human in a new light. Both the perspective and the surreal approach challenge how we perceive the world around us and help us question our inherent assumptions.
The artwork offers a shift in focus relying on each person’s own sense-abilities.
Creating multiple perspectives in any subject matter helps us open our minds to other ways of being.
The art series named Traces express stories left behind by wildlife: trees and plants as food, warnings, invitations, bug repellant, buffets, shelters. Observing traces in the forest reveals interactions between species – evidence of stories. My intention with this work is for viewers to shift their perspective and be curious about these subtle signs that can be found everywhere around the Bow Valley. This work also reveals human traces – both our attempts to protect wildlife and our shortcomings.
As we develop further awareness of the unique and important landscape of the Rocky Mountains, I hope we prioritize connectivity as we consider policies, population growth, and development. National and Provincial Parks cannot live in isolation. There needs to be a growing understanding of the need to protect areas surrounding these Parks, allowing animals to travel between them. By protecting these spaces for wildlife, we also protect many other resources that we depend on in an immediate way (like access to clean water) or on a larger scale (like carbon sequestration). If you’re interested in learning more about initiatives taking place, some great resources to start with are Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative (Y2Y), The Nature Conservancy of Canada, and Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS).
Originally from Mexico City, Ligia immigrated to Canada in 2009 and spent nine years in the Bow Valley. With over 20 years of experience in the arts and having lived in diverse parts of the world, she has participated in several international exhibitions. Her background in Design, Photography, and Visual Arts informs a practice dedicated to exploring cultural narratives and visual dualities.
Living in the Bow Valley provides a rare privilege—easy access to the open landscapes that have long been a source of fascination. The mountains, their heights, and the vast spaces continue to exert an irresistible pull, offering tranquillity and freedom while easing the stresses of everyday life. Few experiences compare to the thrill of standing atop a glacier, witnessing the sun dip behind snow-capped peaks, capturing fleeting moments of grandeur. Yet, despite this proximity to such a majestic environment, a lingering sense of longing persists. It is a longing not only for the physical landscape but for the deeper, more elusive sense of freedom it represents. For an immigrant, this longing is interwoven with a duality—existing between two worlds, two memories, two lives. Through photography, there is a search for belonging, for the hidden landscapes beneath the surface, for fragments of home in unexpected places.
This duality is explored through abstract imagery, where landscapes emerge in the curve of a knee, the lines of a bare spine, or the formations of water within a glacier’s crack. These subtle echoes of nature capture the tension between presence and absence, between here and there, between past and future. Cold, unsaturated tones reflect the melancholy of finding joy in landscapes that still hold a sense of distance, even as the search for freedom continues.
