A Very Sacred Experience: Eli Bornstein’s Arctic Journals, 1986 and 1987

A tribute to the Canadian North, a meditation on artistic creation, and a window onto the ideological musings of Canada’s greatest Structurist artist.

In celebration of his 100th birthday, Eli Bornstein, in collaboration with author and curator Roald Nasgaard, has published a stunning work of personal reflection on a most transformative time in his life and career. Eli Bornstein: Arctic Journals, 1986 and 1987 is a tribute to the Canadian North, a meditation on artistic creation, and a window onto the ideological musings of Canada’s greatest Structurist artist. Devoid of the mythologizing other artists have given their writing on the North, Bornstein’s journals are introspective, insightful, and sometimes funny. Comprised of personal journal entries from two northern trips he took with photographer Hans Dommasch-along with watercolour studies, Structurist reliefs, and a personal collection of poems-Bornstein’s work is a vital reminder of our outsized influence over the natural world and an invitation to recognize our need for nature in our life and in our art. Bornstein’s publication is the culmination of a life’s work on reconciling himself with nature and the understanding our very existence.