Montageries

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Janet Mitchell, "Proportional Representation," 1973

watercolour on paper, 55.9 × 76.2 cm.Collection of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts.

Montageries is not a term you will find in a dictionary. Rather, it is a combination of ‘montage’ and ‘memories’ with the meanings of the two packed up into one word. One online dictionary describes a montage as being “any combination of disparate elements that forms or is felt to form a unified whole, single image, etc.” And, according to the same dictionary source, the word memories is a plural form of ‘memory’ – recalling impressions and facts, embodying remembrance, and recollections of times past.

This exhibition features a concise selection of nineteen artworks from over 8,000 objects of visual art held in the extensive permanent collection of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts (AFA). Compositionally, each of the artworks selected were created by uniting many varied components – montages of sorts – metaphorically highlighting that every artwork stands as a small part of a much larger whole (the AFA collection). Multi-layered and complex, the works included in Montageries are flashes of memory and times past that we can now take a moment to reflect on and remember as we commemorate the

fiftieth anniversary of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts’ permanent collection in the year 2022.

On September 29, 1972 the collection was officially legislated. From that date on, the AFA Art Collection has annually acquired artworks from Alberta’s visual artists and is a continually evolving exemplification of the history, development, and achievements of our provincial visual arts community. In the very first annual report from the Alberta Art Foundation (now renamed the Alberta Foundation for the Arts), Chairman W.B. McMullen wrote, “I trust that the nucleus has now been established for a collection which will continue to grow in every way.” There is certainly evidence of growth within the foundation as we look back on the past fifty years, and there is much to look forward to as we look ahead to the next fifty years.

Some key visual metaphors present themselves throughout the exhibition which hint broadly toward expansions, multiplicities, and fragmentations. Whether intentional or not, John Hall’s woodcut Untitled (n.d.) and Robert Dmytruk’s mixed media painting Touch S. B. W. S. D. W. C (2003) visually nod towards the idea of an ever growing nucleus. Meanwhile Brenda Jones-Smith’s monoprint Place to Gather (2001) and Chris Cran’s Cleveland Portrait #1 (2013) use pixels or dots of paint to montage formal elements together into meaningful compositions.

Close contemplation while viewing the artworks in Montageries reveal glimpses of Al- berta’s art history but more importantly will encourage viewers to consider the ‘bigger picture’ of what each artwork might represent within the context of a fifty-years-young permanent art collection.

Artists:

Kay Angliss

Carol Breen 

Chris Cran 

Mark Dicey 

Robert Dmytruk 

John (K) Esler

Les Graff 

John Hall 

Alex Janvier 

Brenda Jones-Smith 

George Littlechild

Harry Kiyooka 

Luke Lindoe