Description

Artist Statement by Dustin Ferguson

One year after the fires swept through Jasper, I returned to find a forest stripped to its bones. Charred timber scattered like ash-covered memories. Blackened trunks reaching skyward, hollow and still. And there, among the wreckage—a cross, from a car accident long before the flames came. Bearing a single pink rose in bloom.

What Remains is a portrait of survival. Of grief layered upon grief. But also of rebirth. Beneath the ruin, the undergrowth is green—pure, defiant, alive. It speaks to the forest’s quiet promise: that even the most violent destruction is not the end.

The rose on the cross is not just a symbol. It’s a declaration. That love persists. That memory endures. That hope, though fragile, finds a way to grow through the soot.

This image is about what’s left behind—and what rises in its place. It’s a tribute to resilience, to the sacred beauty of renewal, and to the truth that healing begins in the smallest, most unexpected places.