Piers is a group exhibition showing contemporary artwork ranging across media by 18 artists spanning generations, nationalities, and backgrounds, exploring how artists’ practices change through teaching, learning, and mentorship.
Artists: Katie Bethune-Leamen, Cedric Bomford, Lauren Brinson, Yan Wen Chang, Megan Dickie, Laura Dutton, Annika Eriksson, Daniel Laskarin, James Legaspi, Christopher Lindsay, Evan Locke, Danielle Proteau, Hollis Roberts, Arlene Stamp, Jennifer Stillwell, Beth Stuart, Grace Tsurumaru, Paul Walde.
Pop Anthropology is an exhibition of multimedia artist Eric Metcalfe’s oeuvre, spanning over sixty years, in celebration of the artist’s honorary doctorate from UVic (UVic DFA 2021, BFA 1970). This exhibition continues the playful and charged work of Metcalfe’s life: reimagining images, tropes and stereotypes as poignant and plentiful scraps from which to pull meaning. It honours his early development as a student in Visual Arts at the University of Victoria in the early 1970s, as well as his lifetime achievements as a pioneer in performance art in western Canada and co-founder of the Western Front, one of Canada’s leading and longest running artist run centres.
Image credit: Eric Metcalfe, Untitled, 1967, gouache and watercolour on paper.
Still Standing: Ancient Forest Futures brings together Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists to reflect on our relationship with old-growth forests in B.C. from a range of cultural and philosophical perspectives. The exhibition explores the relationships between art, ecology and activism in order to envision futures which honour reciprocal relationships with nature.
Artists: Carey Newman, Connie Morey, Gord Hill, Heather Kai Smith, Jeremy Herndl, Jordan Hill, Kelly Richardson, Kyle Scheurmann, Mike Andrew McLean, Paul Walde, Rande Cook, Valerie Salez. Image: Jeremy Herndl, The Black Cedar, 2021.
Out of Place delves into the relationships between the ground beneath our feet and the roofs over our heads. Through sculpture, photography and stop-motion projection, artist Connie Michele Morey explores ecological displacement (a colonial separation from the earth as home) and its impact on labour and housing dislocation. The exhibition grows out of tensions embodied in the artist’s mixed settler and Indigenous identity, alongside her personal experiences with housing insecurity. Emerging from travel to over fifty former village and industry sites on the east and west coasts of Canada, Out of Place questions what it means to be at home with the body, community, and earth. Image: Connie Morey, Roof Over My Head, Slag Heap, Coal Mine #1, K’omoks Traditional Territory (Comox Valley, BC), 2019.
The Sidewalk Gallery is located outside Legacy Downtown in our Broad Street windows.
Art of Reconciliation invites viewers to witness and participate in a dialogue with youth about what reconciliation means for Indigenous and non-Indigenous people working together to form friendships and take action. The artwork in this show is the result of weeks of reflection, group discussion and deep learning about reconciliation, Indigenous culture, and colonization.
Pop Anthropology is an exhibition of multimedia artist Eric Metcalfe’s oeuvre, spanning over sixty years, in celebration of the artist’s honorary doctorate from UVic (UVic DFA 2021, BFA 1970). This exhibition continues the playful and charged work of Metcalfe’s life: reimagining images, tropes and stereotypes as poignant and plentiful scraps from which to pull meaning. It honours his early development as a student in Visual Arts at the University of Victoria in the early 1970s, as well as his lifetime achievements as a pioneer in performance art in western Canada and co-founder of the Western Front, one of Canada’s leading and longest running artist run centres
Image credit: Eric Metcalfe, Untitled, 1967, gouache and watercolour on paper.
Isshoni: Henry Shimizu’s Paintings of New Denver Internment is an exploration of Japanese Canadian identity, community, and family. Centering the voices of three generations, issei, nisei, and sansei (first, second, and third-generation), this exhibition provides insight into the intergenerational impacts of the forced uprooting and internment of Japanese Canadians during WWII.
Japanese Canadians in the arts: “Did you think it’d come true?”
A Lansdowne Lecture with artist Bryce Kanbara
April 23, 2022 | 7pm UVic Legacy Art Gallery Downtown | 630 Yates St.
Exploring Japanese Canadian artists, issues of identity, and intergenerational relationships, Governor General Award-winning artist Bryce Kanbara will give a presentation for the opening of the exhibition Isshoni: Henry Shimizu’s Paintings of New Denver Internment. With opening remarks by the exhibition curator, Samantha Marsh.
Artist-teachers practice in a hybrid space where pedagogy, art-making, and research intertwine and inform each other. UVic Art Education faculty and sessional instructors share their diverse perspectives, approaches, and experiences inviting visitors to consider ways in which art education stimulates engagement with critical questions and creates stronger connections between people, places, and ideas.
Artists:
Robert Dalton, Mike Emme, Karen Hibbard, Natalie LeBlanc, Connie Michele Morey, Regan Rasmussen, Natasha S. Reid, Kathleen Schmalz, Alison Shields, Shruti Tandon, Michelle Wiebe, William Zuk, Caren Willms
Image: Mike Emme, Lockers, 1986/2022.
Related Programming
‘that to which we cling’ Drop-in clay hand-building workshop with Regan Rasmussen
Saturday, May 14 2022 | 11-3pm UVic Legacy Art Gallery Downtown | 630 Yates St.
Facilitated by Regan Rasmussen (UVic Art Education), this workshop is dedicated to the theme of resilience. Using local mollusk shells as inspiration and applying clay hand-building techniques, participants will respond to a ceramic sculpture installation from the exhibition Breaking the Mold by making their own small ceramic artifact while considering the question: What beliefs and practices do we cling to for sanctuary and resilience in times of adversity?
Free and open for all ages Drop-in, no registration required
Saturday, June 18 2022 | 12-3pm UVic Legacy Art Gallery Downtown | 630 Yates St.
Come join us for a pop-up art hive in the gallery! Visitors are invited to experiment with art making in a welcoming drop-in community setting. To learn more about art hives, visit www.arthives.org. As a starting point, Natasha S. Reid will facilitate an activity that explores various fruits and vegetables commonly grown in Jamaica.
At the end, you can give your finished art work to ISSAMBA’s La Teranga Food Distribution to be added to a food hamper or you can bring it home and gift it to someone you know.
This art activity is an extension of Natasha’s artwork Plantain Belt currently exhibited in the Breaking the Mold exhibition at UVic’s Legacy Gallery (630 Yates Street).
