His black and white charts of 10 locations in B.C. are at once intensely regional and universal.
This duality enunciated in the very titles: Regional Land Impressions of British Columbia— Light Reflections from the Surface of a Planet — our planet as seen from the moon.
The genesis of these extremely sophisticated works unlocks their meaning. The ten locations are Tofino, Galiano, Matsqui, Boston Bar, Clinton, Prince George, Fort St. John, Valemont, Radium, Winfield.
De Courcy flew over them in a light plane at astound 5000 feet, taking thousands of pictures.
From the contact sheets he selected those which had unique characteristics, then began to slowly break down their tonal qualities into pure black and white, looking down and into them under a macro lens.
As he magnified the detail hundreds of times, the images became in most cases abstract, for abstract and representational are only two aspects of nature. Blown up, the detail of an insect's wing, of the trunk of a tree, read as pattern. It is only the bounding lines and true scale which permits us to recognize objects.
The VANCOUVER SUN: Thursday, May 31, 1973
Murals made from air
By JOAN LOWNDES
Sun Art Critic
