Nurturing the Creative Spirit

The Sisters of St. Ann

Guest Curated by Carey Pallister, Archivist, Sisters of St. Ann Archives, with Michelle Jacques | Drury Gallery

In 1858, a small group of Sisters – the Sisters of St. Ann – traveled from Quebec to establish a convent in Victoria. They also established institutions
of education, notably St. Ann’s Academy, which is recognized as one of the…

Fanciful Banko

Japanese Ceramics

Curated by Barry Till | Founders Gallery

The Banko pieces produced in Japan in the late 19th and early 20th centuries are quaint and charming and were quite popular as export items. There is such a preponderance of styles, shapes and decorations of Banko ware. They have been described as imaginative, bizarre, whimsical, fantastic, and charming…

Masterful Images

The Art of Kiyoshi Saito

Curated by Barry Till | Pollard Gallery 

Kiyoshi Saito (1907–1997) was one of the grand masters of the twentieth-century Japanese print movement known as sosaku hanga, meaning “original creative print.

Saito successfully combined Japanese aesthetic elements with modernist, cubist, abstract, and impressionist qualities,achieving a rare synthesis of East and West and of old and new. His poetic…

Black Ice

David Blackwood Prints of Newfoundland

Curated by Katharine Lochnan and organized by the Art Gallery of Ontario

David Blackwood is one of Canada’s leading printmakers and most popular artists. He has been telling stories about Newfoundland in the form of epic visual narratives for over 30 years.

This exhibition showcases many of his iconic works, revealing the richness of Blackwood’s imagination and…

A Postcard from Victoria

Robert Morin & Lorraine Dufour, Raymond Boisjoly, Geoffrey Farmer, Julia Feyrer

Guest Curated by Michael Turner

A Postcard from Victoria is an immersive exhibition that features video, artifact and works on paper.

The video (from which the exhibition takes its name) is the result of a 1983 Western Front Media Residency by Quebec artists Robert Morin & Lorraine Dufour, who travelled to Victoria to make a 16 minute…

Landscape Prints of Kawase Hasui

A Revival of Excellence

Curated by Barry Till

Kawase Hasui is considered one of the most important Japanese landscape artists of the 20th century. Hasui could evoke Japan of the pre-war period as none other.

Two Japanese print artists, Hokusai (1760-1849) and Hiroshige (1797-1858), achieved remarkable success with their landscape images in the first half of the 19th century.  Their masterpieces…

Koshashin

The Hall Collection of 19th century Photographs of Japan

Pollard Gallery

Curated by Catherine Crowston and organized & circulated by the Art Gallery of Alberta.

The exhibition presents a rare opportunity to view one of the world’s largest collections of early Japanese photography. There are more than 230 works in this exhibition from the personal collection of Edmontonian Arlene Hall. Its debut was at the Art…

TRACES

Fantasy Worlds and Tales of Truth

Daniel Barrow, Alison Norlen, Ed Pien  |  Curated by Nicole Stanbridge

Like the work of all good storytellers, the artists in this exhibition captivate the viewer with their imagined worlds informed by eerily familiar narratives. Through each artist’s distinct vision of humanity, these illusory spaces—in some cases haunted by either memory or mythology—reflect back to us…

Virtuous Vendetta

The Story of the Forty-seven Ronin in Prints

Curated by Barry Till  |  Drury Gallery

This true story, which took place between 1701 and 1703, embodies the highest loyalty capable of members of the samurai class and dramatically illustrates the finest qualities in the samurai code of honour.  It is the most celebrated example of loyalty and warrior ethics in Japanese history.

This classic saga…