Microbial art made using Group of Seven tools

The Art Gallery of Algoma is hosting a unique exhibit that pays tribute to the works of the Group of Seven painters and Tom Thomson.

Jon Sasaki brings his works of art to the gallery this week, which were created using microbes collected from the tools used by Thomson and the Group of Seven.

"I sort of imagined that these sort of microbes have been lying dormant on these studio objects all this time," said Sasaki.

"If we were to swab them off and put them in a Petri dish and grow them over the course of, say, a week, we can actually kind of have these sort of blooming landscapes."

Jasmina Jovanovic, the curator of the Art Gallery of Algoma, said Sasaki’s art literally goes beneath the surface of the works of the Group of Seven and Tom Thomson.

"It’s great to have the actual objects here as well that these people used, and some of these probably were here in Algoma 100 years ago," she said.

"So, we just carry on with the tradition in honouring Canadian icons and what they did for Canadian art."