Exhibitions and Events
Henry Bishop: Book Illustrations
Presently curator of the Black Cultural Centre in Dartmouth, Henry Bishop is an artist, historian and educator, who studied graphic design at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. The front alcove exhibition presents a selection of Bishop's illustrations for learning guides for elementary school-age children -- lively images of heroes and heroines, such as Portia White and Marcus Garvey, who have contributed to the history and culture of African Canadians in Canada.
The 42nd Dalhousie Student, Staff, Faculty and Alumni Exhibition
This annual exhibition celebrates the artistic creativity of members of the University community in painting, graphic art, photography, mixed media, sculpture and crafts. All members of the Dalhousie community are invited to enter and no distinction is made between amateurs and professionals. Artworks ready for display will be accepted at the Gallery from 1-12 November inclusive during regular gallery hours. Entry forms will be available in early October.
Henry Purcell and His Times
In conjunction with the Dalhousie Music Department, the Gallery will celebrate the 300th anniversary of the death of the composer Henry Purcell, 1659-1695, ("a greater musical genius England never had," Roger North, 1726) by presenting a display of art and artifacts relevent to Purcell and his times, and hosting various associated musical and literary events.
The Shuebrook Gift
In 1994 well-known artist Ron Shuebrook generously gave a large acrylic painting and five important related black and white drawings to the Gallery's permanent collection, which, with the single Shuebrook drawing already in the collection, make up a coherent group of works that provide valuable insight into this artist's oeuvre. These will be displayed along with other works by Barker Fairly, Margaret Priest and Harold Town. The Gallery acknowledges the generosity of all donors who have contributed to our rich and lively collection of art, which we hold in trust for the whole community.
Robert Wiens: Recent Sculpture
Four elegant and compelling sculptural elements -- a wide bowl and a log carved out of laminated wood, a circular pile of hundreds of wooden hands, and a copper foot suggesting a fragment of a huge monument -- make up this installation of Ontario sculptor Robert Wiens' recent work. Less sociopolitically specific than some of his earlier work, these pieces play with the historical convention of sculpture as monumental statuary, and include references to Wiens' own identity as a maker, and to his materials and processes.
Gerald Ferguson: Compositions 1989-1994
In her catalogue essay for this comprehensive survey of the last five years of Halifax artist Gerald Ferguson's work, guest curator Susan Gibson Garvey writes: "In his latest and perhaps most productive period...Ferguson has given himself permission to plunder the treasury of Western painting, manipulating imagery from sources as early as classical antiquity and as recent as commercial advertising.
Kathy Brown: Passages
Kathy Brown's watercolours and mixed media works distill over twenty years of sailing experiences along the coasts of Atlantic Canada. From the viewpoint of the navigator of a small boat, these works present sections of charts, lines and positions, vistas of sky and water, indications of weather. Although centred on ocean passages, the paintings may also have broader resonance, such as charting passages through life or coming to terms with adverse elements.
Early Views of British North America
Before photography, capturing images of the land was an important responsibility of artists. Early painters of the Canadian landscape ranged from independent professional artists, through topographers trained by the millitary, to interested amateurs. This exhibition includes over 40 works in watercolour, pastel, pencil and ink executed between 1804 and 1910 by professional and amateur artists active in "British North America", as it was then most often called.
Marine Images fron the Permanent Collection
From warships in Halifax Harbour to gondolas in Venice; from William Dashwood's racing yachts off the South coast of England to Arthur Lismer's minesweepers at work in the grey North Atlantic; from square-riggers elegantly engraved by the seventeenth-century master Claude Lorraine to a brave little dory almost swamped by unexpected wave in local artist John Neville's aquatint...this selection of paintings, prints and drawings presents a wide range of subjects and styles in marine imagery.
Melissa Day: Seascapes
In 1993, printmaker Melissa Day joined a scientific expedition to the Eastern Arctic to study the sea bed. Out of this experience came the sources for her multi-layered lithographs and etchings: sonar scans and ship's tracks, sole marks of icebergs, evidence of the slow accretion of sedimentary rocks under the sea. Sea comments "I am interested in the submerged seascape -- how it is shaped over time and how these processes relate to the processes within my own work."
