Exhibitions and Events
Changers: A Spiritual Renaissance
This timely exhibition presents paintings, sculpture, installations, photographs, prints and videos by ten contemporary Canadian women artists of Native ancestry: Rebecca Baird, Rebecca Belmore, Ruth Cuthand, Freda Diesing, Faye HeavyShield, Glenna Matoush, Shelley Niro, Alanis Obomsawin, Jane Ash Poitras and Joane Cardinal-Schubert. Their work addresses a range of important issues, including native history, cultural appropriation, native women’s changing identity and spiritual renewal.
Snakes and Ladders: Recent Paintings by Harlan Johnson, Alex Livingston and Leslie Sasaki
Vigorous brushwork, saturated colour and biomorphic imagery characterize this exhibition of 28 figurative paintings by Harlan Johnson, Alex Livingston and Leslie Sasaki, all of whom have strong connections to this region. Their individual approaches to the problem of reinvesting painting with “content” derive partly from personal biography and partly from literature, both fiction and non-fiction, relating to culture, myth and natural history. All three artists employ allegorical, metaphorical and emblematic devices and an eclectic range of images.
The Logic of Ecstasy: Canadian Mystical Painting 1920-1940
This unusual exhibition provides some original insights into the spiritual roots of abstraction in Canadian painting, and some powerful examples of the work of Bertram Brooker, Emily Carr, Lawren Harris, Jock MacDonald and Fred Varley. Better known as members (or associates) of the Group of Seven, these five painters shared an interest in eastern mysticism, transcendentalism, Theosophy, and the poetry of Walt Whitman.
Selections from the Permanent Collection: Lawren Harris 1885-1970
To complement The Logic of Ecstasy, a small group of drawings by Lawren Haris, selected from the Permanent Collection of the Dalhousie Art Gallery, will be on display in the front alcove gallery. Of particular note in this selection is the working sketch of Harris’ painting “Isolation Peak,” which is included in The Logic of Ecstasy.
Carl Zimmerman: Beside Still Water
The third in our periodic series of front alcove shows, designed to respond more immediately to the rapidly developing work of local artists, features an installation by Cape Breton artist Carl Zimmerman. Zimmerman’s spare, elegant objects have their origins in minimalist concerns, but they also reflect his interest in 30s style utopian architecture, New Deal building programs (dams, reservoirs) and “streamform” design.
The 37th Annual Dalhousie Student, Staff, Faculty and Alumni Exhibition
The Gallery’s annual celebration of the artistic talent of the University community, through an exhibition of paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, sculpture and crafts by Dalhousie students, staff, faculty and alumni. Members of the Dalhousie Community are invited to submit works for this exhibition, to be accepted at the gallery November 27-30 inclusive, during regular gallery hours. For more information or to obtain entry forms, please call the Gallery.
4 Hours and 38 Minutes: Videotapes by Lisa Steele and Kim Tomczak
Curated by Philip Monk for the Art Gallery of Ontario, with accompanying catalogue essays by Monk and Dot Tuer, this exhibition concentrates on the collaborative video work of Steele and Tomczak, beginning with Working the Double Shift (1984). To provide context, a selection of their pre-collaborative individual works is included. These twelve videotapes are provocative and didactic, questioning the manner in which the mass media depict “real life”. Organized and circulated by the Art Gallery of Ontario with the support of The Canada Council.
Form and Figure
Pierre Landry, Assistant Curator of Canadian Art, selected over seventy prints and drawings by Canadian artists from the permanent collection of the National Gallery, covering the period from 1880 to the late 1940s, for this attractive and educative exhibition. The works focus specifically on the human figure: the body depicted for its own sake, nude or clothed, passive or active; the body as an object of aesthetic consideration, or of social or spiritual significance; people unknown and unnamed, or named and celebrated in portraiture and full-length poses.
