SEASON 2017-2018

CYNTHIA GIRARD LA MAIN INVISIBLE

Vernissage : Thursday September 7 at 6 pm
Exhibition : Septembre 8 to 30

The artist creates a satirical version of economic concepts such as the law of supply and demand, growth and decline, and free trade. In her paintings, the human figure interacts with the animal figure in bizarre enactments of wild capitalism. She creates a world where painting, installation, and performance meet in an unbridled fantasy, full of humour and poetic moments. During the vernissage the artist will present a “perfinance”. Dressed up as an ant, she will read poetry and publish a small zine entitled “L’écononomie pour les cons”.

KARINE FRÉCHETTE ASTÉRISME

Vernissage: Thursday October 5th at 6 pm
Exhibition: October 6 to 28
Artist’s Talk: Thursday October 12th at 7 pm

In her painting practice, Karine Fréchette investigates the relationship between colour, light, space, and movement. Her practice is resolutely neo baroque, and, she feels close to Op Art and to early 20th century abstraction. She is constantly researching ways to activate the space between the painting and the spectator. In this series, she invokes fluxes and oscillations, as though the painting were the receptacle where movement becomes fixed. Tinged with humour, her pictorial fictions allow cosmological evocations to flirt with kitsch and popular culture.

SECRET STUDIO JOIN US!

Preview: November 4 to November 9
Gala Event and Opening Sale: Thursday November 9th at 6 pm
Exhibition continues to November 18

Secret Studio is a unique fundraising event in the Visual Arts Centre’s prestigious McClure Gallery, featuring hundreds of artworks selected from the studios of our community of professional artists. You won’t want to miss this rare opportunity to discover hidden gems and purchase affordable art while supporting our creative community. $40 tickets to the Gala Event and Opening Sale entitle ticket holders to first dibs on great art plus wine and hors-d’œuvres.

LYNN PRICE HOW SMALL A THOUGHT

Vernissage: Thursday November 23 at 6 pm
Exhibition: November 24 to December 16
Artist’s Talk: Thursday November 30 at 7 pm

This exhibition presents contemporary possibilities for still life, a painting genre with a rich and complex history. It has been the painter’s genre of choice when it comes to investigating human relationships with everyday objects and time through representation. Consisting of a large number of still life paintings of fruit, accumulation in this body of work is a metaphor for marking increments of time that form a minute, an hour, a week, a year…a life.

DANIEL LANGEVIN VACUITÉS

Vernissage : Thursday January 4 at 6 pm
Exhibition : January 5th to 27th

Painter Daniel Langevin creates stripped-down compositions, which question and critique the complexity of the visual environments that we are evolving within. Driven by a need for order and control over the image, he presents a personal and rigorous re-reading of its elements as he forms links between the leading currents of abstraction and the contemporary modes permitting its generation. Colour plays an important role in his work, as does rendering the act of painting visible through strict attention to the painting surface, choice of materials, and repeated use of hard-edge painting style.

INTERVENTION : 33 WOMEN PAINTERS

Invited Curator : Harold Klunder
Vernissage : Thursday February 1 at 6 pm
Exhibition : February 2 to 24
Curator’s Talk : Thursday February 8 at 7 pm

As our 2018 Guest Curator, well known Canadian artist Harold Klunder brings together an exhibition of small format works by 33 women painters whose collective careers span over six decades. While the artworld has witnessed major shifts during that time, in particular the influence of feminist thought and the questioning of painting’s continued relevance as a contemporary discipline, women have persisted in creating works that are adventurous, genuine, and reflective, and which have contributed in a meaningful way to painting’s on-going re-invention. Artists include : Ann Beam, Kathryn Bemrose, Sara Cale, Barbara Caruso, Catherine Carmichael, Gathie Falk, Nika Fontaine, Cameron Forbes, Sybil Goldstein, Eliza Griffiths, Libby Hague, Susanna Heller, Gail Hutchison, Rae Johnson, Fiona Kinsella, Dorothy Knowles, Wanda Koop, Rita Letendre, Natasha Martel, Doris McCarthy, Christiane Pflug Ciara Phillips, Annie Pootoogook, Louise Robert, Gina Rorai, Janet Stanley, Francoise Sullivan, Geetha Thurairajah, Marion Wagschal, Ambera Wellman, Diane Whitehouse, Joyce Wieland, Shirley Wiitasalo.

ITO LAÏLA LE FRANÇOIS TOI ET TA SPLENDIDE LAIDEUR

Vernissage : Thursday March 1 at 6 pm
Exhibition : March 2 to 24
Artist’s Talk : Thursday March 8 at 7 pm

Ito Laïla Le François’ sculptural work explores the relationship between the body and the land, along with the ways in which they resemble each other. The artist believes that we are one with nature. Her body of work presents a poetic whole, where suffering coexists with the sublime. Made of glass, ceramic, wood, and textile, the works emanate a strength that comes as much from their technical construction as their symbolism. The artist seeks to raise questions around the abusive and destructive ways in which we collectively treat the land, mirroring how we treat our bodies. At once disturbing and resounding with truth, each work speaks of the unbreakable link between humans and the spaces they inhabit.

ANNUAL STUDENT EXHIBITION

Vernissage : Thursday March 29 at 6 pm
Exhibition : March 30th to April 21

Students registered in the School of Art’s winter session are invited to exhibit their work in our Annual Student Exhibition. The exhibition, which includes hundreds of works in a wide variety of media, gives students the experience of seeing their work in the context of a professional gallery. It also provides an opportunity for students and the public to see the great diversity of creative activity that takes place at the Centre.

LAURENCE PILON IT ONCE WAS A GARDEN

Vernissage:Thursday May 3 at 6 pm
Exhibition: May 4 to 26
Talk: Thursday May 10 at 7 pm

Through their intimate nature, the paintings of Laurence Pilon have the ability to suspend desires of perfection and grandeur. Her works reveal a poetic merging of personal archeology, the everyday experience, and traces of history. The artist’s recent works reveal a sensitive vision of the world where the future contains intensified uncertainties.

ILLIRIJAVUT

Invited Curator: Qumaq Mangiuk-Iyaituk and Kathryn Delaney
Vernissage: Thursday May 31 at 6 pm
Exhibition: June 1 to 23
Talk: Thursday June 7 at 7 pm

Through a number of workshops, Qumaq Manguik-Iyaituk, Mattiusi Iyaituk, and Kathryn Delaney engaged Inuit and Non-Inuit in developing storybooks based on the personal stories told by an Inuit elder. This exhibition shares the processes and products of this yearlong series of workshops and encourages the empowerment of Inuit culture and traditional values.