The Kingston Prize is back! The national biannual prize for portrait painting, which I wrote about back in 2011 HERE, is again accepting submissions from artists. Michael Bayne, Kingston Ontario, Orange Grandma, oil on wood panel, 15 x 10 cm. Winner of The Kingston Prize 2011. Image: kingstonprize.ca The $20,000 prize is awarded to a painting of a specific Canadian
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The National Gallery of Canada very kindly invited me to Ottawa – expenses paid – to see the current exhibition, which is called ‘Builders’, and is the second Canadian Biennale. (Did you know there was a Canadian Biennale?) According to curator Jonathan Shaughnessy, the show’s title is inspired by the idea of artists as not only players in the game,
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Micheal Laverty writes about his soon-to-be-published satirical first novel, about a “21st century troupe of court jesters – a collective of artists dubbed Apollo’s Army.” Micheal Laverty graduated with an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Windsor and completed the School for Writers program at Humber College. His writing has appeared in various journals including The Fiddlehead and
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I recently reviewed a new book about the famed portrait photographer Yousuf Karsh. Karsh’s portrait of Georgia O’Keefe. Image:lalumiereetlobscurite.com Karsh arrived to Canada from Syria in 1925 and eventually set up in Ottawa, where he worked his connections in politics, eventually photographing Sir Winston Churchill, which made him world famous. For the last 18 years of his life, he lived
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“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.“ – Marcel Proust Today, I swung by Feheley Fine Arts gorgeous new gallery at 65 George Street, where ADAC (the Art Dealers Association of Canada) was hosting a lunch in honour of the upcoming exhibition Oh, Canada that will open at Mass MoCA on
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As the summer gallery season gets underway, here are my picks for the country’s best blockbuster exhibitions: THE COLOUR OF MY DREAMS: THE SURREALIST REVOLUTION IN ART Vancouver Art Gallery Through September 25, 2011 Man Ray, close up of The Kiss, 1930. Image: ultraorange.net The VAG has organized the most comprehensive survey of Surrealist art ever to be shown in
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The other day I found a number of old Canadian Art magazines on sale for $2 each. I bought them, and found this questionnaire in the April 1966 issue. It’s interesting, reading over the questions how some remain relevant today and others, not so much… My vintage copies of Canadian Art. Image: VoCA On the following page were answers to
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I was fascinated by yesterday’s Slutwalk that took place in Toronto, and sorry that I wasn’t able to attend. Slutwalk in Toronto yesterday. Image: scathinglywrongrightwingnutz.com The walk attracted around 1,000 people and was arranged in part as a protest against comments by police Constable Michael Sanguninetti who, while speaking to students at York Unviersity, said “Women should avoid dressing like
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Big congratulations to the 2011 Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts! Robert Fones, Can-D-Man, 1971. Image: ccca.ca They are: Photographer Geneviève Cadieux, visual artist Robert Fones, performance and visual artist Michael Morris, filmmakers David Rimmer and Barbara Sternberg and painter Shirley Wiitasalo, each for distinguished artistic achievement. Metalsmith Kye-Yeon Son won the Saidye Bronfman Award for excellence in
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If you haven’t heard about the AA Bronson brou-ha-ha by now…. Canadian artist AA Bronson. Image: flickr.com Well, let’s just say that the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, which is showing the exhibition Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture, exploring art by and about homosexuals, has caved to pressure by Christian activists and removed video piece, A Fire in
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Andrea Carson writes on contemporary art, architecture and design...