Art Exhibitions Archives - Page 13 of 22

by Marja-Leena

Tomoyo Ihaya & Helen Gerritzen

R E C E N T WO R K S by Tomoyo Ihaya & Helen Gerritzen
November 1 – 27, 2005
Opening reception: Thursday, November 3, 7 – 9 pm
at Malaspina Printmakers Gallery
1555 Duranleau Street, Granville Island, Vancouver, BC
Hours: Mon-Fri 10-5pm • Sat-Sun 11-5pm

Another print exhibition to go and see! Thanks to Tomoyo for the email notice, all the way from India where she has been for some time and won’t be back for the exhibition. Helen Gerritzen will be flying in from Edmonton to be present at the opening.

I’ve written before about Tomoyo, who is a friend and past member of the Art Institute and who exhibits amazingly frequently.

October 29, 2005 in Art Exhibitions, Other artists, Printmaking by Marja-Leena Comments Off on Tomoyo Ihaya & Helen Gerritzen

by Marja-Leena

Prior Editions: 10 Years

Jardin Noir IV (detail)
Jack Shadbolt
lithograph on paper
88.9 x 68.6cm, 1994,
private collection

Prior Editions: 10 Years of Canadian Printmaking, curated by Darrin Martins, is still on until October 30, 2005 at the Burnaby Art Gallery, in the city of Burnaby, next door to Vancouver.

From the invitation: Prior Editions Studio has made important contributions to the development of contemporary printmaking in Canada. As one of the few independently owned and operated studios in the country, Prior Editions opened its doors to artists from across the nation to investigate, experiment and create works of art in the lithographic, intaglio and relief forms of printmaking. Works from the Permanent Collection, Prior Editions Studio and private collections are displayed in conjunction with memorabilia and archival material collected while the studio was operating in Vancouver, between 1989 and 2001. Some of the artists included are Jack Shadbolt, Gordon Smith, Mollie Lamb Bobak, Gathie Falk, Toni Onley, Otis Tamasauskas, Robert Young and Carel Moisewitch.

I’m disappointed that I missed the opening in September where it would have been fun to meet many of our city’s printmakers. The Burnaby Art Gallery has a major collection of prints, and with its return lately to a focus on prints in their exhibitions like in the 80’s, printmakers are very pleased. Naturally it’s a must-see-show for me, though I’ve not made it yet because of being so busy, but this weekend I MUST see it, I will see it. I hope I’ll be able to post an installation photo later.

October 27, 2005 in Art Exhibitions, Other artists, Printmaking by Marja-Leena Comments Off on Prior Editions: 10 Years

by Marja-Leena

invitation

Here’s the exhibition invitation I designed with some great help by daughter Erika and her skills with type design. It has gone to the printers a few days ago, so here’s hoping it turns out well!

The details:

Silent Messengers: mixed media prints
Opening: November 16th, 4:30 – 8:00p.m.
Studio Art Gallery, Capilano College
2055 Purcell Way, North Vancouver
The exhibition is on from November 16th to December 7th, 2005
Gallery hours: 10am – 4pm Monday – Friday
(or by appointment – email me)

I’ll post this again closer to the opening date along with a map. Mark your calendars. Everyone welcome!

October 23, 2005 in Art Exhibitions, Being an Artist, Digital printmaking by Marja-Leena 13 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

Picasso and grandson

Protean Picasso: Drawings and Prints from the National Gallery of Canada and Selected Paintings from International Collections, an exhibition that brings together the full scope of the artist’s career through drawings, prints and paintings, opened at the Vancouver Art Gallery on October 15, 2005 and will remain on display through January 15, 2006.

Most exciting news for Vancouver’s art mavens was that Picasso’s grandson Olivier Widmaier Picasso was in Vancouver last week for the opening. He also gave a talk at Robson Square about his biography Picasso: The Real Family Story, to counter books published by his cousins who’ve offered darker portrayals of their famous grandfather. Saturday’s (Oct.15th) Vancouver Sun has an interesting interview of Olivier Picasso, by Amy O’Brian. Because it may be not be available for long, I’ve copied it in full below.

In the shadow of Picasso
Living by Picasso or with Picasso is the question for a grandson

“You cannot escape from Picasso,” says the well-dressed man standing amid the Vancouver Art Gallery’s latest exhibition. “Even if you have a different name or if you want to hide the fact you are a grandson or relative of Picasso, once you’re discovered, it’s finished. People consider you as someone different.”

Olivier Widmaier Picasso, grandson of the famously fascinating Pablo Picasso, was in Vancouver this week for the opening of Protean Picasso at the VAG. He wandered around the dim galleries of the exhibition, pointing to portraits of his grandmother and talking — in a thick Parisian accent — about his distinguished and famous pedigree.

The 44-year-old’s grandfather is considered one of the greatest artistic minds of the 20th century, but has been portrayed on film and in papers as a womanizer and an irascible tyrant. Olivier has written a book in an effort to set the record straight on the legends surrounding his grandfather. “I didn’t want to find secrets,” he said. “I wanted to know if some of the legends were true, which was the case. Or were untrue, which was also the case in some situations.” Olivier is the product, one generation removed, of a 16-year love affair between Marie-Therese Walter and Picasso. The couple had one daughter, Maya, and Maya then had Olivier, Richard and Diana — three of the artist’s seven grandchildren.

During a brief tour of the VAG’s fall blockbuster show, Olivier stopped and pointed out a delicate portrait of a beautiful woman. With its finely drawn lines and careful shadowing, the portrait looks nothing like Picasso’s best-known cubist works, where his subjects are often fragmented and almost grotesquely portrayed.
The drawing is a perfectly proportioned likeness of Olivier’s grandmother. “She is the perfect image of a perfect muse,” he said while looking at the portrait. She was also blond and “very sexual,” Olivier said, while walking over to another drawing that portrays his grandmother’s likeness in four periods, ranging from neoclassical to cubist.

“[Pablo Picasso] was convinced that it was necessary for him to explore everything he could, not only on the artistic side but also on the human side,” Olivier said. “He was exploring a lot with different subjects, including different women.” Olivier doesn’t deny the legends about his grandfather’s passion for women, but believes he was a complicated man who was passionate about many things.

His book, ‘Picasso: The Real Family Story’, was written in an effort to accurately portray that man. Olivier never knew his grandfather, who died in 1973 when Olivier was still a boy, but he says his grandfather was so much a part of his universe that he felt compelled to find out the truth.

Growing up a Picasso or being connected to Picasso proved difficult for some, but Olivier says he was determined to embrace the challenges. “Either you live without Picasso, which is absolutely impossible, or you live by Picasso, thinking that everything is revolving around him and your life is revolving around him and you become a victim, because you’re losing yourself,” he said. “Or you live with Picasso, and I think that’s the best way to accept that 10 to 15 per cent of your life will always be influenced by him.”

Another of Picasso’s grandsons, named Pablo after the artist, killed himself shortly after Picasso’s death. “He drank bleach and he didn’t die immediately. He died after three months.”

Olivier said it was simply too complicated to carry the burden of a name that was known in nearly every household. “Imagine in the 1950s, going to school and kids saying ‘What is your name?’ ‘My name is Pablo Picasso.’ It was like being called Charles De Gaulle. It was impossible to survive,” he said. “The son of a banker can be a banker, but the son of Picasso is not Picasso.”

Olivier’s grandmother and Picasso’s second wife also committed suicide after the artist’s death. “Those two women had probably lost their extraordinary link to Picasso. When he died, they [returned] to the ordinary life,” he said. “There was no more excitement. They both probably felt it was better to try to find him again somewhere than to survive in that situation.”

Peer into the complicated mind of Pablo Picasso at the VAG until January 15.

October 18, 2005 in Art Exhibitions, Books, Other artists by Marja-Leena 5 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

John Mawurndjul

John Mawurndjul, Milmilngkan, September 2004
© Foto Erika Koch. From Museum Tinguely

Synchronicity strikes again! Just two days ago I wrote about rock art in Northern Australia. Now I’ve just finished looking at Art Daily’s post about an exhibition in Museum Tinguely in Basel, Switzerland of work by a contemporary indigenous artist from the same area, Western Arnhem Land in Northern Australia.

« rarrk » – John Mawurndjul : Journey through Time in Northern Australia is the first retrospective exhibition of this artist in a European art museum.

John Mawurndjul developed his own manner and mode of treating the traditional images. He gradually outgrew the motifs of Aboriginal iconography…. to treat it today with entirely new concepts and in a totally new form. His works are imposing by their large scale, and though the eucalyptus bark still furnishes the support for his paintings, the natural earth pigments – red and yellow ochre, pieces of natural chalk and charcoal – are now intentionally mixed with modern, soluble binding agents. The artist changes the pictorial content in a continuous process of transformation: using a cross-hatching technique (rarrk in Kuninjku).

John Mawurndjul’s artistic development… refutes the widespread prejudice in Europe that denies ‘Indigenous’ artists the right to a personified individuality and the capacity to innovate outside the boundaries of the authority of their community. He further demonstrates in his paintings that dealing actively with traditional sources can be a fruitful experience if one is capable of understanding tradition other than as an anonymous and inalterable corset.

The museum’s opening page is a nice introduction with its moving images of the show. The page about the exhibition is accompanied with photos, and amongst the several links is one to a press photo gallery where you can open full screen images of several examples of Mawurndjul’s work, as well as some examples by a few other indigenous artists selected for the accompanying historical survey. I admire today’s indigenous artists who have been able to meld their ancient traditions with personal interpretations, originality and vision. I’m also grateful that some art museums offer virtual exhibitions online for those of us unable to attend the real thing.

September 20, 2005 in Art Exhibitions, Other artists by Marja-Leena Comments Off on John Mawurndjul

by Marja-Leena

Fred Brown’s woodcuts

Fred Brown: Share the Shelter
Woodcut 36″ x 72″

I had heard that printmaker Fred Brown was going to be having an exhibition this month in Vancouver. Imagine my surprise when I read Art Daily’s posting “Power Tools, Plywood, and the Artist take Vancouver” and that artist turns out to be Fred!

“The Devon Gallery is proud to host Vancouver’s first major showing of the nationally renowned woodblock print artist, Fred Brown the Artist, and challenge the perception that fine art and the creation of fine art are generally considered the stuff of high society. This perception is challenged when an artist gets supplies from the local hardware store. Using plywood instead of canvas and power tools instead of a brush or pencil, Fred Brown the Artist creates fine art in the form of woodblock prints.”

Fred is showing his woodcuts at the Devon Gallery, 688 Denman Street, Vancouver, BC, to October 11, 2005.

His work can also be viewed at his website FredBrowntheArtist.

I’ve seen Fred working on his amazing huge woodcuts in the Art Institute studio where he’s been printing from time to time over the past several years. I’m sorry I missed the opening on Friday and will go and see the exhibition soon.

September 19, 2005 in Art Exhibitions, Art Institute (Printmaking), Other artists by Marja-Leena 1 Comment »

by Marja-Leena

Dan Steeves

Dan Steeves is presenting a series of printworks ‘The House as Fortress, the dichotomy of symbolic structure’ at The Lookout Gallery, Regent College, at UBC, Vancouver until October 14th.

Yesterday we were pleased to have artist Dan Steeves visit as guest speaker in the Printmaking department of Studio Arts, Capilano University**. He teaches printmaking at Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick, his home province.

Dan Steeves showed his recent works that are in the exhibition as well as numerous older works. A warm and gifted speaker, he described his techniques in his chosen medium of etching always in black and white. His method is slow and painstaking as he works from black to white. Frequently reusing old plates sometimes allows him to incorporate old textures and “ghosts” to great effect.

Informed by his Atlantic Canada roots, Dan Steeves often uses images of local old houses and public buildings as a metaphor for sanctuary, security, safety, OR as fortress in the negative sense. His stories behind each work were fascinating, personal and sometimes heart wrenching. Someone in the audience said, “I almost want to cry”, to some empathetic laughter from the rest of us. His prints really are very evocative and beautiful both technically and spiritually.

Dan Steeves finished by saying to the students that no matter what medium or style you choose to work in as an artist, it must come from the heart and not be just the fashion of the day. (Or something like that, I didn’t get a chance to write it down.)

Do enjoy a look at Dan Steeves’ work at his website.

**Since writing this, the College has since been designated a University so name and link have been updated.

September 16, 2005 in Art Exhibitions, Art Institute (Printmaking), Other artists, Printmaking by Marja-Leena 2 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

Matisse in Louisiana

You sure know Henri Matisse.
And you sure know Louisiana.
But it is not that Louisiana I think of.
In Denmark there is an art museum called Louisiana.
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art.

Thus begins Asbjorn Lonvig’s “Matisse and Louisiana…”, a long and interesting article in absolutearts.com, about this gorgeous Danish museum and the Matisse exhibition being presented there right now… do read it and also enjoy his photos.

I really enjoyed this for it also brought back memories of our visit there some years ago, as I wrote a year ago.

The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art website has an interesting page about the exhibition Matisse: A Second Life. (The link for this doesn’t seem to work, so you will have to find that page). Also have a look at Art Daily’s Photogallery of Matisse’s work at Louisiana. I sure hope I can be as creative in my old age.

Thanks to bellebyrd for the link to the article.

September 14, 2005 in Art Exhibitions, Other artists by Marja-Leena Comments Off on Matisse in Louisiana

by Marja-Leena

Sunday in Vancouver

A gorgeous sunny warm day yesterday tempted us outside to explore. We headed to Deep Cove with walking shoes, a backpack with water, a snack of nuts and the camera. The “Cove” was pleasantly crowded with people enjoying the boating (sail, motor, kayak and canoe), the waterfront parks, the village with its little shops and cafes.

We poked around and then went into the Seymour Art Gallery to see the current exhibition “Lelam” (Coast Salish for “friend”) of First Nations work. We liked most the various objects made of leather, and the furniture made of wood and steel incorporating native designs. We were quite fascinated by the photos of the method of preparing the cedar bark for weaving their fine traditional cedar bark hats.

This reminded us of how similarly the Finns prepared birch bark for their traditional weaving into baskets, shoes, belts, even hats. There was an extensive display of birch bark works and photos of the technique in the excellent Craft Museum of Finland that we visited a few years ago – I wish it was on their website. We also met the retired husband of one of my cousins who made the most marvellous hats of many styles, but would not sell them, for he used them as examples for his demonstrations in his teaching of the craft. Long ago. a maternal great-uncle made a beautiful basket and pair of shoes (usable but kept for decoration only) for my mother, who later gave them to me because I loved them so much, and I still treasure them and display them proudly.

Oh, I’ve wandered off the subject of our day! Some time after we got home from our outing, we smelled acrid wood smoke and noticed the air was very hazy all around. Where’s the fire? We turned on the TV for the early evening news, to learn about a large fire in Burns Bog, south of Vancouver. The winds were spreading the smoke all over the Lower Mainland. This could last a long time as the peat burns deep. I happened to come across Boris Mann’s post and photo of ithe fire at Urban Vancouver, which I’ve captured below. Our pleasant day of fresh air, exercise, sightseeing and art ended with no fresh air and a stuffy closed house to sleep in.

news report on the Burns Bog fire

September 12, 2005 in Art Exhibitions, Being an Artist, Finland, Estonia & Finno-Ugric by Marja-Leena 3 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

Rodin in Vancouver

Auguste Rodin. Monument to Balzac. 1898 (cast 1954). Bronze, 9′ 3″ x 48 1/4″ x 41″ (282 x 122.5 x 104.2 cm). from MOMA.

The sculptor must learn to reproduce the surface, which means all that vibrates on the surface, soul, love, passion, life. – Rodin

Yesterday evening we went to see the exhibition Rodin: A Magnificent Obsession at the Vancouver Art Gallery, the first time that we’ve seen a major collection of his work. I went expecting to be disappointed for some reason, but it turned out to be a very very good show, quite inspiring. There were about 70 works mostly sculptures, a few small and beautiful engravings and some photographs. Lots of interesting information posted about the artist’s life, works, writings, the lost wax process for bronze casting, a law concerning editions of his sculptures (12 only per work), and so on, all made it a great learning experience. Interestingly, Rodin himself did not believe in limited editions, sometimes having hundreds of a popular sculpture such as The Kiss made up in different sizes by his studio and the foundries. (The tacky reproductions in the gift shop don’t count!)

Of course, cameras were not allowed so I found an image online, above, of one of my many favourites – do read the interesting description of the creation of this Balzac commission. There were several examples of the numerous studies Rodin made of Balzac (famous but dead, can you imagine?) before he decided on the above one. My husband chuckled over the one with an erection only partly concealed by the writer’s hand. Rodin wanted to portray Balzac’s famed eroticism as well as his overweight figure which did not go over well, and even the robed figure above was deemed too controversial. Much of Rodin’s work, with its rough textures and expressive movement, was considered somewhat radical for his time.

The Musée Rodin, chosen by the artist himself, has a website with a wealth of information and an excellent online gallery of works in different media. And the Rodin Museum in Philadelphia has Rodin’s Sketchbook online.

If you’re in Vancouver and want to see the exhibition, it is still on until September 22nd. If you want to save money, go on a Thursday evening. This is the first time we went on a Thursday night which is by donation, paying $10 for the two of us, which normally is $30 now. (I had let my membership lapse.) Obviously Rodin is popular for it was very busy, especially with two large groups with guides, rather like an opening night where it was hard to see some work. I do prefer a quieter time to really enjoy the art with a sense of meditation, but it was still worth it.

UPDATE: Sept.11.05 You may like to also read an interesting article on Art Daily about a great sounding exhibition of drawings and sculptures by August Rodin and Joseph Beuys at Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt in Germany. If I were in Frankfurt….

September 9, 2005 in Art Exhibitions, Other artists by Marja-Leena 3 Comments »

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Tomoyo Ihaya & Helen Gerritzen

Prior Editions: 10 Years

invitation

Picasso and grandson

John Mawurndjul

Fred Brown’s woodcuts

Dan Steeves

Matisse in Louisiana

Sunday in Vancouver

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