Harlan House (b. 1943) has long been one of Canada’s most renowned studio potters. Working steadily in rural Ontario since 1973, he is celebrated for his elegant porcelain vessels, lustrous glazes, and refined surface ornament. This exhibition explores a virtually unknown group of early wall sculptures on the theme of environmental distress.

Based in Calgary until 1973, House adopted the motif of the highway to symbolize the increasing exploitation and degradation of the land. He prospected for clay and glaze materials around the city, often filling his old Chevrolet pickup truck with dirt and rocks, then testing them out in his studio. These artworks are not just about the Prairies—they are made of its very earth.

Born in Vancouver and raised in Lethbridge, Alberta, House studied painting and ceramics at Alberta University of the Arts (then Alberta College of Art). He set up a small studio with friends in Calgary in 1969 and began making and selling functional pots. The works in this exhibition date from the early 1970s and show House using sculpture as a means to explore social issues beyond what he found in functional pottery. Many of them were included in two touring exhibitions organized by the National Gallery of Canada and the Glenbow Museum in 1973–74. This is the first time the works are being seen publicly in more than fifty years. House made his highway series in the context of a growing counterculture that included second-wave feminism and anti-war protest. His critiques of the human impact on local ecologies and its intensive exploitation, including the tar sands in Alberta, bring the importance and resilience of the land to the forefront of our minds today.