Shorts: Five Cross-Country Shows

We take you to Hamilton, Iqaluit, Regina, Toronto and Courtenay, B.C.

Breathing in China

When curator Yan Zhou lived in China, the smog was terrible. “On the expressway to the airport as I left China, there was no boundary between the thick yellow-greyish air and the Guanzhong Basin,” she says. “One could not distinguish sky and earth, only several peach trees blossoming early seemed to add cheer to the world.” That was 2009, and Zhou, now based in Toronto, found herself reliving her past when much of Ontario was blanketed in smoke from forest fires while she installed a group exhibition, Breathing in China: Art, Ethics, and Environment, at the Art Gallery of Hamilton. The show, which also reflects on political repression and the pandemic, includes work by 15 artists from China and Canada. One highlight is a video installation, Smoke and Fog, that Quebec artist Jean-François Côté started in Beijing during a 2017 artist residency. The show continues to Dec. 31.

Leslie Reid & Robert Kautuk: Dark Ice 

Dark Ice, a show that explores the dramatic impact of climate change in the North, draws its name from ice that becomes thinner and darker as it melts. Darker ice absorbs heat more quickly, creating a snowballing effect symbolic of the speed at which climate change is impacting the North. The show, organized by the Ottawa Art Gallery, brings together work by Ottawa photographer Leslie Reid and Nunavut photographer Robert Kautuk, who uses drone technology to capture aerial images, mostly around his home in Kangiqtugaapik (Clyde River) on the east side of Baffin Island. Now on national tour, the show is at the Nunatta Sunakkutaangit Museum in Iqaluit through Sept. 15 and will open in November at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, before moving on to Sarnia, Ont.

View from the Edge of the World

Saskatchewan is known for its prairie landscape tradition. Enter a stereotype-busting group exhibition, View from the Edge of the World, with work that ranges from plaster casts to board games. Participating artists offer ways to understand the land beyond the traditions of European art, says Sandee Moore, curator of the Art Gallery of Regina. “The Saskatchewan landscape is not flat and featureless, dropping into nothingness at the horizon,” she says. “Instead, it is full of lives, stories, overlooked beauty and miraculous transformation wrought by humans, animals, weather and time.” The show, which runs until Oct. 22, includes work by Catherine Joa, Gladys Wozny Siemens, Golboo Amani, Mike Keepness, Vera Saltzman, Sue Bland and SpekWork Studio, composed of Cat Bluemke and Jonathan Carroll.

Emma Kohlmann: Sitting by the Well

With her bold colours and simplified imagery of plants and animals, American artist Emma Kohlmann’s first show in Canada seems to signal the arrival of a folk or outsider artist. Toronto’s Cooper Cole Gallery, where Sitting by the Well is on view until Sept. 9, says Kohlmann is “drawn to the allure of a naive aesthetic, viewing it as a pure reflection of her subconscious.” Based in Massachusetts, she has exhibited across the United States and in Europe.

Together Apart: Under One Roof

The role of friendship in supporting artistic creation underscores Together Apart: Under One Roof, a three-person show at the Comox Valley Art Gallery in Courtenay, a small city on Vancouver Island. The exhibition features the creative outpouring of longtime Winnipeg artists Aganetha Dyck, Diana Thorneycroft and Reva Stone, who shared a studio space for several decades. While their practices are distinct and they never collaborated, they nevertheless built enduring ties of friendship. Curators Denise Lawson and Angela Somerset sum it up: “Their willingness to hold space for each other’s art and lives bonded them.” The show is on view through Oct. 28. ■

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