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State of the Art

New Art at the Art Gallery

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CCAG Celebrating Fall Exhibitions with Opening Events Over Two Days!

-Public invited for Centre events Oct. 23-24 exploring three new exhibitions-

The Confederation Centre Art Gallery (CCAG) is getting set to host their first opening events since early 2020 and is inviting the public to celebrate three new exhibitions this weekend.

The events are focused around three new exhibitions at the CCAG, including St. John’s-based Mi’kmaw painter Nelson White, whose portrait series Tukien (Awaken) celebrates indigenous artists and activists. This project is a collaboration with the Grenfell Art Gallery (Corner Brook) and co-curated by Mathew Hills and Pan Wendt. 

The two other new shows being recognized include Give Me Shelter, which features 13 artists from St. John’s, and Alexis Bellavance: ốps, a video installation looking at the constant and regular breathing of the sea and sky by the Montreal-based artist.

The CCAG has scheduled a two-day opening, including a ticketed sit-down event on Friday, October 23 and an afternoon of public tours on October 24. Both events require pre-booking and spaces are limited. The Friday October 23 opening is an evening gathering from 7:30 to 9 p.m. Patrons can meet the artists, view the new works, hear live music and enjoy delicious appetizers and drinks, all included in a $25.00 ticket. Tables of two or four are available; tickets can be purchased in person at the Confederation Centre Box Office, or by calling 902.566.1267. 

The second event—the October 24 Guided Tours of the new exhibitions—are free-of-charge and will each run for 45 minutes, with a maximum of 10 people per tour. Pre-registration is required for one of four timeslots: 1 p.m., 1:15 p.m., 2 p.m., and 2:15 p.m. Interested patrons should RSVP to Evan Furness at 902.628.6112 or efurness@confederationcentre.com.

>>13 Emerging Artists from St. John’s

Culminating several years of studio visits and research, the CCAG is presenting Give Me Shelter, a two-gallery survey of emerging artists based in the city of St. John’s, NL.

The exhibition features a variety of mediums, ranging from painting and drawing, to video and photography, to sculpture and textile work, including several artists working with hooked rugs. “The show will provide an important platform for St. John’s artists to showcase their work outside their home province, and the publication that will accompany the exhibition is a key part of this exposure,” offers Gallery Director Kevin Rice.  

The exhibition is part of CCAG’s Studio Watch Series and is supported by the RBC Foundation.  “I really enjoyed getting to know the artistic scene in St. John’s,” says exhibition Curator Pan Wendt, “and while this is a broad survey, it also pinpoints some aspects of the culture of St. John’s that I didn’t expect to encounter.” 

Wendt continues, adding that the capital is an international city, with a richness that goes beyond a lot of the stereotypes around Newfoundland culture. “Most of the artists [there] are not actually from the city, which shelters many subcultures and guests from around the world. This became a theme for a show—St. John’s as a sort of safe harbour, a place one can carve out a unique identity.” 

Give Me Shelter displays a complex variety of artistic projects, many of which refer to history and tradition, while at the same time demonstrating the modernity of St. John’s today. The show includes artists: Nicholas Aiden, Greg Bennett, Pepa Chan, Hazel Eckert, Jose Gonzalez, Ashley Hemmings, John McDonald, Jason Penney, Emily Pittman, Daniel Rumbolt, Mimi Stockland, April White, and Olivia Wong. 

Give Me Shelter has received research and logistical support from Eastern Edge Gallery, the Rooms Art Gallery, Emma Butler Gallery, and Christina Parker Gallery. The Centre would like to gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.

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PEI Theatre is the Guild, Harbourfront Theatre, Confederation Centre for the Arts, Watermark Theatre, and the Victoria Playhouse

State of the Art

The Great Inflatable Has Arrived

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Giant Inflatable Sculpture Set To Transform Sobey Gallery at the CCAG

‘Pop-up’ work from Alexis Bellavance: Compression-depression on view for one week only

The Confederation Centre Art Gallery (CCAG) in partnership with Art in the Open, is excited to present, Compression/Decompression, a sculptural installation by Montreal artist Alexis Bellavance for the coming week. 

The giant inflatable work, which will be on display for the week of September 29 to October 4, was originally meant to feature in this year’s Art in the Open festival, however weather conditions made its display too dangerous. 

“It seemed like a disaster at the time. The wind and rain made a house-sized inflatable piece impossible,” says CCAG Curator Pan Wendt, “but in the end it works out really well for everyone. By good fortune, there is a five-day gap in the exhibition schedule; a space is available, and the public will get to see this work over an extended period. With its scale, it will look amazing in the Sobey Gallery.”

Also showing in the Young People’s Gallery this week is an audiovisual installation from the Quebecois artist: Alexis Bellavance: ốps. This video work is based on footage captured by a floating camera that looks at the regular breathing of the ocean and the sky.

Multidisciplinary artist Alexis Bellavance is the co-founder of the Montreal performance event VIVA! Art Action and an active member of the artist-run centre Perte de Signal. His work has been presented in numerous events, festivals, and galleries in North America, Europe, and Asia. This is his first project on P.E.I.

Patrons might blink and miss these two unique exhibits, so Centre staff invite everyone to visit during regular hours this week to these works. The Gallery is open Tuesday to Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Experience Compression/Decompression, on display in the CCAG’s Sobey Gallery until October 4.

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PEI Theatre is the Guild, Harbourfront Theatre, Confederation Centre for the Arts, Watermark Theatre, and the Victoria Playhouse

State of the Art

Spheres and Skulls

Icons of the Interior

 

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Art has often been interpreted as an external manifestation of mental processes. This exhibition presents a selection of works from the collection that explore this subject matter, with an emphasis on the use of the head, and by extension the brain, as a representation of their container and origin. Curated by Pan Wendt.

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PEI Theatre is the Guild, Harbourfront Theatre,
Confederation Centre for the Arts,
Watermark Theatre, and the Victoria Playhouse
State of the Art

Setting the Table

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Setting the Table: Still-Life and its After Effects

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The still life was the humblest genre, until it became the basis for modern abstraction and the invention of the readymade. This exhibition at the Confederation Centre presents a selection of works that build on the still life’s strategies of selection and arrangement. Curated by Pan Wendt.

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PEI Theatre is the Guild, Harbourfront Theatre,
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Watermark Theatre, and the Victoria Playhouse
News Flash

Talks and Tours

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ArtTalk-2019-768x533.jpgFebruary 6 Curator Pan Wendt will introduce his latest exhibition Artists by Artists which asks the question what it means to be an artist by looking at portraits of artists.
February 13 Jill McRae, co-curator of the exhibition The Debbie Show: views from the desk, will introduce gallery receptionist Debbie Muttart and tour visitors through a selection of Debbie’s favourite works from the CCAG collection.

February 20 Evan Furness, visual arts educator, will introduce the Victor Cicansky retrospective exhibition The Gardener’s Universe, which includes nearly 100 bronze and ceramic works by the acclaimed Canadian artist.

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PEI Theatre is the Guild, Harbourfront Theatre,
Confederation Centre for the Arts,
Watermark Theatre, and the Victoria Playhouse
State of the Art

Who Makes Art? Answers Soon

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Who makes art, and what does it mean to be an artist? Artists have often tried to address such questions in portraits of one another, and of themselves. An exhibition selected from the Confederation Centre Art Gallery (CCAG) permanent collection entitled Artists by Artists, which highlights these explorations, opens this Saturday, January 18.

The exhibition features the work of more than 30 visual artists, including photographic portraits by Lionel Stevenson, Dominique Cruchet, and Richard Furlong of Prince Edward Island artists Jack Turner, John Bradford MacCallum, Hilda Woolnough, Bill McFadden, and Nigel Roe. Also included is: a charcoal portrait of Donald Andrus by Bruno Bobak, Andrus’ portrait of Adam Sultan, Brian Burke‘s portrait of Libby Oughton, and a sculpture of legendary Quebecois artist Armand Vaillancourt by the late Carl Phillis.

The portraits in this exhibition make visible how artists think about what they do and who they are, often in the settings where they work and live.

“If a portrait is a record of its subject, it also reveals something of its maker’s relationship to the person portrayed and the social world they share,” remarks Curator Pan Wendt. “Portraits of artists show us how artists define the singularity of their role, whether they are self-portraits that function as self-presentation, or images of other artists that record the identifications, rivalries, and intimacies between peers.”

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PEI Theatre is the Guild, Harbourfront Theatre,
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Watermark Theatre, and the Victoria Playhouse
State of the Art

In the Looking Glass

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Artists by Artists

Who makes art and what does it mean to be an artist? Artists have often tried to address such questions in portraits of one another, and of themselves. An exhibition selected from the collection.
Curated by Pan Wendt

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PEI Theatre is the Guild, Harbourfront Theatre,
Confederation Centre for the Arts,
Watermark Theatre, and the Victoria Playhouse
State of the Art

All Things Burke

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Brian Burke Film Screenings, Book Launch and ArtTalk

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It’s all things Brian Burke in December at the Gallery. First up is a noontime screening of Brian Pollard’s film Figure in a Landscape on Wednesday, December 4 at 12:05 p.m. On Thursday, December 12 we will screen the Brian Pollard/William Herrington film Portraits: Many Years Later and launch our latest art catalogue Predicaments: Brian Burke, a retrospective. And we’re not stopping there. On Sunday, January 5at 2 p.m., Curator Pan Wendt will close out the Burke show with an ArtTalk. These events are FREE and everyone is welcome to attend.

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PEI Theatre is the Guild, Harbourfront Theatre,
Confederation Centre for the Arts,
Watermark Theatre, and the Victoria Playhouse
State of the Art

Transfering Images

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A selection of politically-charged mixed media paintings by Canadian and Ojibwe artist Carl Beam.

Born on Manitoulin Island, Ojibwe artist Carl Beam (1943-2005) frequently employed photo-transfer techniques juxtaposed with expressive brushwork in paintings that addressed racial disharmony. A great admirer of Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol, Beam placed the liberatory promise of artistic autonomy embodied in the painterly gesture in tension with a proliferation of media and documentary reproductions that referred directly or indirectly to the history of oppression of Indigenous peoples. This selection of Beam’s work from the Gallery’s permanent collection includes almost two dozen collage-based paintings from the early 2000s donated by Toronto collector Milton Winberg.

-Pan Wendt, Curator

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Watermark Theatre, and the Victoria Playhouse
State of the Art

Being Brian Burke

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Predicaments: Brian Burke, a Retrospective Set to Open on October 5

An overview of the career of one of the Island’s most significant visual artists on exhibition at CCAG

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A new exhibition opens this week at the Confederation Centre Art Gallery (CCAG) celebrating the work of Brian Burke. The long-awaited two-gallery show will be open to the public on October 6 and officially celebrated—along with three other new exhibitions–at the Fall Art Gala on Friday, October 18 at the CCAG. The exhibition and its associated publication are sponsored by CN100.

The exhibition features over 100 paintings from a career that spanned 35 years. Brian Burke (1952-2017) was one of Prince Edward Island’s most significant visual artists of the past century. Mostly self-taught, although he did study briefly under Eric Fischl at NSCAD, Burke was a painter with a distinct personal style. His works addressed social roles, alienation, and the absurd in darkly humorous figurative images.

“Brian Burke is still a local hero, but he was also someone who dealt with universal themes, and achieved international success,” explains Curator Pan Wendt. “He was a rare artist who both sold his work and achieved critical acclaim, and he was a painter’s painter, instantly recognized by his peers for his original and powerful vision.”

This exhibition sums up Burke’s career, ranging from his rough and direct early work, through his time in New York and his major exhibition Mister Man, to his last decade, when he worked in Luzern, Switzerland, and includes loans from many private and public collections. It is accompanied by a publication that features essays by Wendt; Burke’s spouse, fellow artist Judith Scherer; NYU art history professor Robert Slifkin; and Swiss curator Heinz Stahlhut.

“We are so pleased with the generosity and collaboration of many private and several public collections for lending work to us for this exhibition in particular the Artist’s Estate,” says Gallery Director Kevin Rice.

He continues, “This retrospective of nearly 130 paintings, including many completed in Switzerland and not shown on P.E.I. previously, is really a celebration of an important Canadian artist. We hope we have a fantastic turnout at the opening reception at the Gallery on Friday, October 18 at 7 pm.”

Confederation Centre wishes to acknowledge the Department of Canadian Heritage, the Government of P.E.I., and the City of Charlottetown for their continued support.

PEI Professional Theatre Network

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PEI Theatre is the Guild, Harbourfront Theatre,
Confederation Centre for the Arts,
Watermark Theatre, and the Victoria Playhouse