"The review of the historical significance of Paleolithic cave paintings often references an anthropological theory that Paleolithic peoples believed in and practiced forms of magic, in particular ""sympathetic hunting magic,"" which posits that images of animal art painted on walls were intended to compel the world to magically improve the hunt. The theory is often disputed by contemporary scholars and it is argued that perhaps the opposite is true; that these paintings expressed an understanding that the world cannot be compelled into action. It is in this context that recent work by sculptors Niall Donaghy and Shelly Rahme can be viewed. Donaghy's WWII B-29 bomber scale version cannot of itself serve to avert nuclear destruction; Rahme's ""river"" of kitchen knives cannot reduce the turbulent flow of water against rocks."

Born in Metz, France, poet Gil McElroy grew up on air force bases in Canada and the United States. He studied English Literature at Queen’s University in Ontario. His poems and other works have been published in countless periodicals throughout North America since the late 1970s; issued in a number of self-published chapbooks, broadsheets, and one-of-a-kind book works; and anthologized in Groundswell: best of above/ground press, 1993–2003 (Broken Jaw Press, 2003), Side/Lines: A New Canadian Poetics (Insomniac Press, 2003), and Written in the Skin (Insomniac Press, 1999). He currently lives in Colborne, Ontario with his wife Heather.

McElroy has also been an independent curator and freelance art critic for 20 years, organizing exhibitions for public art galleries and museums in Canada and writing art criticism for magazines in Canada, the United States and Australia. A selection of his catalogue essays and reviews was published as Gravity & Grace: Selected Writing on Contemporary Canadian Art (Gaspereau Press, 2001) and in the anthology CRAFT Perception and Practice: A Canadian Discourse (Ronsdale Press, 2002). His show ST. ART: The Visual Poetry of bpNichol pays tribute to one of the great poets of the twentieth century. Originally mounted at the Confederation Centre Art Gallery & Museum in Charlottetown, P.E.I. in May through October, 2000, it later moved to the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia before touring the country throughout 2001. McElroy’s curatorial essay accompanying the exhibition also won the Christina Sabat Award for Critical Writing in the Arts.

Gil McElroy's profile page