Mark Adair’s Last Garden

By Mike Landry

Mark Adair's charcoal drawing, "Tree of Knowledge."

Before visiting Things of Desire, Toronto artist Mark Adair had never been to a blog before. At 53-years-old, Adair is finding himself connecting more and more with contemporary themes through his work.

Preoccupied with what he calls, “old man’s concerns,” his new exhibition Last Garden connects his personal reflection on the end of his life with environmental activism. After a good friend died a few years ago, along with her garden die he was tending to, Adair began to reread Rachel Carson landmark eco-activism book Silent Spring.

“You know when I was younger I was only concerned with the environmental stuff, I was a real active environmentalist,” says Adair, “but now that I’m older it all kind of gels together—it’s the end of my own life and you do see this kind of unbelievable practice going on around the world and it gets kind of defeating I guess.”

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