Take your last chance to see the exhibition of recently acquired artworks through the City of Ottawa’s Fine Art acquisition program. Today is the last day!
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| left, top: Fouhse, Tony, Yvon, Ottawa, 2007, digital photograph on paper left, bottom: Wonnacott, Justin, Intersection of Booth Street and Somerset looking southwest, summer evening, 2004, digital photograph on paper right: Harrington, Michael, 401 GAS, 2010, oil on canvas |
The exhibition shows places and incidents that shaped our public memory and experience – and the artistic expressions provide a new and unexpected view on our home city and the Nation's capital.
Due to the excellent hanging of artworks in different media such as painting, photography, prints, and sculpture, the stunning correlations between them become clear. Juxtapositions of street views, portraits, cityscapes, installations, and still lives compare and contrast each other, whereas the motives like Ottawa at night, the river, or documentation of the residents emerge through the exhibition.
Like the exhibition booklet says: “Distorted structures and shapes represent contemporary, ambiguous relationships between place and circumstance. Whether relying on images of familiar places and events to produce meaning through comparison, or destroying pre-existing notions of order and identity through the impositions of new narratives, these artworks explore what shapes our experiences as residents of this city.” [Jonathan Browns]
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| Argyle, Katie, day by day, week by week, month by month: Ottawa Bus Strike, 2009, linocut on paper |
Some of the artworks refer to recent episodes that had a great impact on the life in Ottawa. E.g. we all remember the Public Transit Strike in winter 2008/2009.
This painful cold experience is the subject of Katie Argyle's large-scale linocut print. In the style of Expressionists like Emil Nolde, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, and Ludwig Kirchner she documents the strike from its first strike day in December to the last day in January in a few rows of small prints. “52 days of transit hell” - like one of the signs in one of the prints states.
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left: Mollineaux, Melinda, Ottawa Insomnia #6, 2007, photograph on paper right: Reid, Leslie, Calumet - Current I, 2006, oil on canvas |
Mollineaux captures night time experiences in her pinhole camera that she set up on her down town balcony at night. Due to the fact that the camera remained open the whole night, we can see how the moon travelled through the sky, leaving a glowing light...
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| Lasserre, Maskull, Lexicon, 2008, steel and newspaper |
The sculpture that impressed me most in this show, is the large stack of tightly compressed newspapers that were cut in shape of a human torso skeleton. Lasserre understands his work “as a physical metaphor for the union of nature and artifice, and the paradox of their reconciliation.”
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top: Thomas, Jeffrey, My Conversation with Edward S. Curtis: Return the Gaze, Swallow Bird (Crow Tribe), Joseph Crowe (Salteaux Tribe), 2006, digital photograph on paper bottom: Berry, Judith, Disparate Elements, 2008, oil on MDF board |
Also interesting is the photo of a powwow dancer, that Thomas set in juxtaposition to a portrait by Edward S. Curtis, who is well known for his series of the Natives in the early 20th century. By combining these two images, Thomas demonstrates how colonial his perspective was. Berry's “Disparate Elements” of build structures, a fallen tree, and a children's toy train bridge produce a “convoluted rerouting of plans” [from the exhibition booklet].
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| Hussey, Danny, Signs of Language Video Stills, 2009, silkscreen on digital print on paper |
In the last year, local Ottawa artists submitted 2,733 artworks; and 57 artworks by 37 artists were selected through a peer-review jury. At least one work by these artists is now shown in “Place and Circumstance” - a unique opportunity to see recent additions the the City of Ottawa's Fine Art Collection.
Facts:
Place and Circumstance
City Hall Art Gallery
New Additions to the City of Ottawa’s Fine Art Collection
April 22 to June 12, 2011
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