Wishing Happy Holidays!

Geertgen tot Sint Jans, "The Nativity at Night", c. 1490 (National Gallery, London, UK)

Happy Holidays and a wonderful New Year to all my readers.

If you would like to find out more about that touching nativity scene, see:

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/geertgen-tot-sint-jans-the-nativity-at-night

City of Ottawa: Municipal Funding Info Session

Just got a very interesting invitation that I would like to post FYI. The City of Ottawa invites Ottawa-based artists to an info session next week. From their press release:

The Independent Filmmakers Co-operative of Ottawa Inc. (IFCO), SAW Video, Canadian Film Institute, Ottawa International Animation Festival and Artengine invite you to an Information Session on Municipal Arts Funding.

Marie-Christine Feraud, Cultural Funding Officer for the City of Ottawa’s Cultural Funding Support Section (CFSS), will provide a brief presentation about municipal arts funding programs, including information on eligibility criteria, basic tips and tricks to submitting an application and the City of Ottawa’s process by which they accept and evaluate submissions.

Marie-Christine will also be available after the presentation to discuss potential project applications or to field individual questions on eligibility requirements of the various programs administered by the CFSS. Sign-up sheets will be on hand for participants to add their names to emailing lists or to book a one on one meeting with a Funding Officer.

Presentation in English with bilingual support material available and bilingual Q&A.

WHEN: Tuesday, November 27, 6 pm to 8 pm
WHERE: IFCO Members' Lounge - Ste. #140, Arts Court, 2 Daly Ave, Ottawa, ON K1N 6E2

RSVP by November 23, 2018: admin@ifco.ca

Hal Ingberg's "Papa" in Gatineau

I cannot believe that we go so much snow already!

Love how public art here in the National Capital Region looks in snow. For example "Papa" on Hull Island in Gatineau.

The large, multicoloured, transparent glass walls look amazing in the winter sunshine.

From the city's web site:

Unveiled on May 17, 2010, Papa was created by Montréal artist and architect Hal Ingberg. The work was selected by a jury, through a national competition, launched in spring 2007.

The Art of the Brick

Exhibition view "The Art of the Brick"

Nathan Sawaya uses LEGO building blocks to create impressive sculptures, either based on famous artworks like e.g. the Venus de Milo, Jan van Eyck’s “The Arnolfini Portrait”, and van Gogh’s “The Starry Night” and much more, or his own imagination. The exhibition titled The Art of the Brick at the Canada Science and Technology Museum shows his unique creations using the well-known children’s building blocks, and the results are astounding! 

Exhibition view "The Art of the Brick"

A self-portrait of sculptor Nathan Sawaya

The most interesting part of the exhibition is a bit further down the hallways: Nathan Sawaya’s impressive collaboration with photographer Dean West. Simple objects like an umbrella or water bucket were made out of LEGO and then photographed in very staged everyday moments. Just at second glance, the observer discovers Sawaya’s artifacts in West’s large-scale photographs, and gets an uncanny feeling about the entire depicted scene. Just saying: Gregory Crewdson meets LEGO... 

Works in the exhibition, Nathan Sawaya’s collaboration with photographer Dean West

This umbrella, fully made of LEGO, appears in one of Dean West's large-scale hyper-realistic photographs.

Exhibition view: That LEGO dog appears on a leash in the Dean West photograph at the wall.

The show closes on Labour Day.



FACTS: 

THE ART OF THE BRICK 

Canada Science and Technology Museum, Ottawa 

Until September 3, 2018 

Link: https://ingeniumcanada.org/exhibitions/the-art-of-the-brick

Karen Bailey: Raising Stanley / Life With Tulia

Last Thursday, July 26, I was happy to attend the vernissage of Karen Bailey’s exhibition “RAISING STANLEY / LIFE WITH TULIA”. I also had a chance to see the powerful performance by Ottawa storyteller Kim Kilpatrick.

Bailey’s exhibition describes the journey from puppy to working guide dog for the blind - an accessible creative collaboration with storyteller Kim Kilpatrick. Karen’s impressive and so vivid paintings are displayed in the Fritzi Gallery and also appear in video format accompanying Kim’s eight performances in the Studio Theatre.

Kilpatrick, who was born blind, captured the audience with touching, striking, sometimes hilarious, accounts of her life with her guide dogs. Bailey’s paintings, as well as her voice and the voice of director Bronwyn Steinberg (for accessible audio descriptions), were projected as part of the performance. It’s fascinating to see how well these different media – visual art, theater, spoken word – intertwine and provide a fully accessible experience. And by the way: Tulia, Kim’s guide dog, is on stage as well (but mostly sound asleep).

INFO:
Fritzi Gallery, Great Canadian Theatre Company (GCTC)
1233 Wellington St. W., Ottawa
July 26 - August 5, 2018
Exhibition hours:
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday 11 am - 5 pm, Thursday - Friday 11 am – 9 pm, Saturday 12 pm – 9 pm, Sunday 12 pm – 4 pm
Performance tickets and further information: gctc.ca

SPAO: Challenging Canadiana Artist Talk

The School of Photographic Arts Ottawa (SPAO) hosts an artist talk on Saturday, June 16 from 5-7pm for "Parfocal Lens: Challenging Canadiana", the second session in the 2018 visiting artists’ lecture series.

Art on display in CANADIANA: Selections from the Art Bank Collection, on view until July 1 in the SPAO Centre Gallery.

The curator of the exhibition, Johanna Mizgala, will join exhibiting artists Denis Farley, Lorraine Gilbert and Angela Grauerholz in a far-ranging conversation about contemporary Canadian photography and sense of place. Sounds very promising.

FACTS:
SPAO, 77 Pamilla St., Ottawa
Free admission.
Link: www.spao.ca

Mystery Solved!

I had contacted the City of Ottawa because of the missing panel at Richcraft Rec Center. They were surprised to hear that it is gone, and will replaced it soon. According to the city's art collection, the artist is Alisdair MacRae, the work is entitled Flora of Nova Scotia, produced in 2011.

The photographs are utilizing the cyanotype process through a contact print coated paper with the sun acting as the exposure.

That's what the text panel will say: Process plays an important role for MacRae in producing his work. He takes pleasure in the uncertainty of results. Here, each of these images is produced through cyanotype contact printing whereby various plants are positioned on coated paper between two sheets of glass and exposed to sunlight. This photographic process produces images on a blue ground. MacRae’s prints were inspired by Anna Atkins’ cyanotypes featured in Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions from 1843, the first photographic prints ever published. Atkins used a cyanotype process to document various forms of algae and seaweed, contact printing the plant along with a scientific caption. In contrast, the prints that MacRae has produced lack technical information related to species, moving these images away from the merely indexical. 

MacRae received a BFA from the University of Victoria and a MFA from the Milton Avery Graduate School for Fine Arts (New York). His work has been featured in numerous group and solo shows in Canada and abroad including Anthem at Carleton University Art Gallery (Ottawa) in 2007. MacRae currently lives and works in Ottawa where he has been involved in several curatorial and commission projects.

Mystery Works of Art

Does anyone know what this wonderful series is? And who is the artist?

Installation at the Richcraft Recreation Center, second floor.

The Richcraft Recreation Center in Kanata displays art from the Ottawa city's collection, and it's absolutely worthwhile to drop in just to see the stunning photographs, e.g. Tony Fouhse's rural play structures (second floor) and David Barbour's tree series (in the hallway leading to the pool).

But this series of photographs is missing its exhibition panel! I am sure they are some kind of photograms of plants. The paper used is of an interesting structure as well. Anyone with information, let me know please. I hope the city will fix it soon.

There was once a panel, but it has been missing for a couple of months now.