Category Archives: Legacy Maltwood

Exhibitions displayed on the lower level of the Mearns Centre for Learning at McPherson Library under the names Legacy Maltwood and Maltwood Prints and Drawings Gallery.

Art of the Book 2013

Karen Kunc, Fractured Terrain
Karen Kunc, Fractured Terrain

November 22, 2013 – March 24, 2014

Legacy Maltwood (at Mearns Centre – McPherson Library)

Art of the Book 2013 both embodies and defies the traditional definition of what a book can be. The content ranges from calligraphy to blackout poetry, while the books take on imaginative forms such as luggage-style tags or DNA’s double helix. Drawing from ancient techniques, the artists have represented a full history of book making, including the modern e-book. Organized by the Canadian Bookbinders and Book Artists Guild, this 30th anniversary juried exhibit features award winning work from some of the best makers in Canada and the United States.

A companion exhibit of the 31st annual Alcuin Society Awards for Excellence in Book Design in Canada is featured in the adjacent McPherson Library Special Collections Reading Room from October 28 – November 29.

Events:

On November 25, 2013 an opening reception was held to great success. Two local CBBAG members gave a guided tour of the exhibition and Caroline Riedel spoke about the exhibition.

Similar Exhibitions:

Coalescence: Bridging Contemporeneity & Tradition

Richard Hunt, An Eagle [and golf course]

Richard Hunt, An Eagle [and golf course]

August 28 – November 18, 2013

Legacy Maltwood (at the Mearns Centre – McPherson Library)

Curated by Emerald Johnstone-Bedell and Lesley Golding

This exhibition at the Maltwood Prints and Drawings Gallery offers an in-depth look at the work of five contemporary Northwest Coast artists: Francis Dick, Charles Elliott, Richard Hunt, Tim Paul and Moy Sutherland. Drawing on works from the University of Victoria’s extensive Northwest Coast print collection, this exhibition demonstrates how the artists use traditional stylistic elements and cultural references to express contemporary experience.

These five artists represent the three main culture groups of Vancouver Island: Coast Salish, Nuu-chah-nulth and Kwakwaka’wakw and were selected for their innovative work as well as their longstanding influential relationships with both the university and the local community.

Highlights of the exhibition include Richard Hunt’s An Eagle [and golf course], which injects both humour and unexpected imagery into a traditional formline composition, and Francis Dick’s Comes a Woman, which addresses female spirituality. Additional themes include environmentalism, the Christian faith, cultural revival, commercialization, mentorship and personal relationships. The prints are accompanied by quotes from the artist providing insight into the inspiration and creative process associated with the work.

The Long Now of Ulysses: Curating Literature after the Internet

James Joyce in "Shakespeare and Co." bookshop, Gisèle Freund, by permission of the Estate of Gisèle Freund /IMEC Images L'Institut Memoires de l'edition contemporaine, Paris. Special Collections, University of Victoria

James Joyce in “Shakespeare and Co.” bookshop, Gisèle Freund, by permission of the
Estate of Gisèle Freund /IMEC Images L’Institut Memoires de l’edition contemporaine,
Paris. Special Collections, University of Victoria

May 21 – August 12, 2013

Legacy Maltwood (at Mearns Centre – McPherson Library)

Curated by Dr. Stephen Ross and Dr. Jentery Sayers

This exhibition uses James Joyce’s modernist masterpiece Ulysses to introduce visitors to the broad contexts of modernism such as the rise in celebrity culture, decolonization, and an expanding global awareness, even as it brings to light both the everyday content and the avant-garde stylistic dimensions of the novel.

This project is a collaboration between English graduate students, the Modernist Versions Project, the Maker Lab in the Humanities, and the University of Victoria Libraries and Art Collections. It draws on material from university and private collections to place Ulysses in a cultural context that extends across the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, demonstrating the novel’s – and modernism’s – ongoing relevance. Students were challenged to conceptualize text and ideas in visual media, and to think about the long and varied afterlives of key cultural artifacts – especially where they are unintended and unanticipated by the artifact’s creator.

Understanding Place in Culture: Serigraphs and Transmission of Cultural Knowledge

Francis Dick, The Dragon
Francis Dick, The Dragon

October 18, 2012 – January 28, 2013

Legacy Maltwood (at Mearns Centre – McPherson Library)

Curated by Shelby Richardson

The Understanding Place in Culture online catalogue is available here. It features a curatorial essay, numerous works of art and information about the artists.

Museums and other educational institutions are often seen as sites of privileged knowledge production, spaces that have often excluded minority perspectives and realities. This exhibition presents a selection of prints from the George and Christiane Smyth and Vincent Rickard Northwest Coast Print collection that focus on representations of place and Indigenous knowledge production. The perspectives represented by these artists challenge the hegemonic practices of institutions, such as museums, by positioning the artists as the ethnographic authorities on their cultural expressions and knowledge.

The University of Victoria: A Community of Communities

University of Victoria Alma Mater Society President Paul Williams leads a large group of students down Douglas Street protesting fees increase on 18 October 1965.

University of Victoria Alma Mater Society President Paul Williams leads a large group of students down Douglas Street protesting fees increase on 18 October 1965.

August 22 – October 15, 2012

Legacy Maltwood (at Mearns Centre – McPherson Library)

This exhibition features a selection of historic and contemporary photographs of life at UVic over the past 50 years. Taken from Ian MacPherson’s book ‘Reaching Outward and Upward: The University of Victoria 1963-2013, this exhibit promises a vibrant look at the people, places and events that make our campus unique.

The Art of Jack Wise

Jack Wise, Mandala

Mandala, Jack Wise

 

June 8 – August 12, 2012

Legacy Maltwood (at Mearns Centre – McPherson Library)

Curated by Nicholas Tuele

Jack Wise’s work is deeply personal and spiritually profound. Known for his calligraphy, Chinese brushwork, and mandalas, which embody Buddhist cosmology or worldview, Jack Wise was a prolific artist and popular mentor and teacher. This exhibition features a selection of stunning and memorable paintings, prints, drawings and calligraphy by Wise, who spent a considerable part of his artistic career on the west coast. Most of the selected works are part of the permanent collections of the University of Victoria Art Collections and University Archives, given to the University in 2008.

Symbols of Living In-Between: Re-stor(y)ing Life Within Life-Threatening Illness

restorying

April 13 – June 4, 2012

Legacy Maltwood (at Mearns Centre – McPherson Library)

Curated Robbyn Gordon Lanning

Explores people living with three life-threatening illnesses (HIV/AIDS, cancer, and chronic kidney disease) and how they represent their experiences through symbols.

Advances in science and healthcare have allowed people with life-threatening illnesses to live longer and healthier lives. But the outcomes of treatment are uncertain and the experience of living in-between a promise of prolonged life, and the possibility of illness reoccurring and progressing, is often misunderstood.

Thirty-two people diagnosed with a life-threatening illness (cancer, chronic kidney disease, and HIV/AIDS) volunteered for an interview. They were asked to identify a symbol that represented their experience with their diagnosed illness. Symbols of living in-between: Re-stor(y)ing life within life-threatening illness is the collective effort from a team of nurse researchers seeking new insights into the experiences of individuals that live with the uncertainty of a serious illness.

This exhibit shares a selection of these important images and stories with the public. Symbols range from personal objects and medical documents to favourite music, clothing, and family photographs. Narratives from the participants and poems produced by the research team accompany the stories of these individuals living with a life-threatening illness.  The symbols and narratives highlight how living with a life-threatening illness is much more than a “medical story.”

Symbols of living in-between: Re-stor(y)ing life within life-threatening illness is a travelling exhibit and will be displayed in multiple spaces from galleries to healthcare facilities. This exhibit is part of a larger study entitled Re-stor(y)ing Life Within Life-Threatening Illness.  The Re-stor(y)ing project has been funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).  KRESCENT and the Kidney Foundation of Canada has provided additional support.

The Silent Observer

Untitled

Untitled

February 8 – April 2, 2012

Legacy Maltwood (at Mearns Centre – McPherson Library)

Curated Andrea Routeley

He is known as the “father of Canadian photojournalism,” quietly clicking with the “eye of an artist, the concentration of a surgeon, and the reflexes of a cat.” From Trudeau’s mischievous slide down the banister on Parliament Hill, to Ben Johnson’s momentary thrill of triumph at winning the 100 meter dash, to the accusing glance of a child of the Chernobyl disaster, Ted Grant has created thousands of iconic images over the past six decades, distilling our world into single, expanding moments.  

The Silent Observer features Grant’s latest work, a continued exploration of healers, this time from the point of view of medical interns. Grant captures these young men and women in classrooms, operating rooms and rural clinics, from moments of intense concentration to playful laughter, as they journey from student to physician.

Images of Internment: Paintings by Dr. Henry Shimizu

Henry Shimizu, Painting #3
Henry Shimizu, Painting #3

November 19, 2011 – February 2, 2012

Legacy Maltwood (at Mearns Centre – McPherson Library)

In 1999, Dr. Henry Shimizu created a series of oil paintings based on his life as a teenager in the New Denver Japanese Internment Camp, BC, from 1942 to 1946. Images of Internment is an attempt to highlight the activities and lifestyle of the internees in this camp; they are the memories of a teenager and his friends.

According to Shimizu, despite isolation from mainstream Canadian Society during this time, the development of young Japanese Canadians progressed in almost the same pattern as any other Canadian teenager. One would have thought that this internment experience would have embittered this group and led to widespread despair and depression. Instead, says Shimizu, they came away from the experience more determined to be successful Canadians, contrary to the intention of those who promoted and carried out this injustice of internment and exile.

Lords and the Land: Stone in East Anglia

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

July 6 – September 28, 2011

Legacy Maltwood (at Mearns Centre – McPherson Library)

Curated by Dr Michael F. Reed

This exhibit documents the relationship between stone and tenurial authority in the 10th and 11th centuries in Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, England. Many of the objects and buildings featured in the exhibit have not been the subject of scholarly discourse for over ninety years. Only a few archeologists even know of their existance. This exhibition presents rare photographs taken from four years of extensive archaeological fieldwork in East Anglia by Micael F. Reed, PhD (York, UK, 2009).

Dr. Reed is a specialist in the material culture of early medieval northern Europe. His research and teaching is multidisciplinary, incorporating archaeological, art-historical and literary methodologies. Dr. Reed’s area of special interest is Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Scandinavian England, particularly stone sculpture as a medium for the expression of lordship, ethnicity and eschatology.

Familiar Strangers / Les Etrangers Familiers

Distant cousins_small

May 21 – July 4, 2011

Legacy Maltwood (at Mearns Centre – McPherson Library)

Familiar Strangers / Les Etrangers Familiers is the result of a long process between two artists of different cultures, languages and ages. Agnes Ananichuk is a Ukraine-Canadian and lives in Victoria, BC and Sylvain Tanguay is a Franco-Quebecois and lives in Amos, Quebec. These two artists began their work together while participating in an exchange project between Atelier Mille Feuille of Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec and that of Ground Zero Printmakers of Victoria, BC, the site of the show Strangers II. Since then, they have continued to work in symbiosis using the content of their respective families’ collection of old photographs and other ideas resulting from the evolving relationship.

The work is continuing to evolve from using the old photographs to looking at the interment of Eastern Europeans – the majority of whom were Ukrainians – in camps across Canada during the First World War. One of these camps was located near Amos, Quebec near the home of Tanguay. He is very aware of this aspect of Canadian history and has incorporated some of this history into his work.

This show demonstrates some of the possibilities in the use of modern communication and technology in a creative process and the development of friendship between diverse individuals at a geographic distance. The works included a variety of printmaking techniques including collographs, photogravures and linocuts plus collage based on the combined works/materials from both artists. This exhibit shows how this relationship and collaboration evolved and the increasing warmth and familiarity of the artists. Having never met, they are friends.

Constructing Sights in the Workplace

Wandagloves.NEFMay 5 – May 18, 2011

Legacy Maltwood (at Mearns Centre – McPherson Library)

Curated by Dr. Wanda Hurren

This project focused on the aesthetics of workplace construction sites / sights, and featured enlarged and mounted photographs created by the participants of a photo-based research project. Goethe reminds us that “the hardest thing to see is what is in front of our eyes.” Construction sites have become so common that we almost stop noticing them, or when we do notice, it’s often the negative aspects: dust, noise, interruptions to our usual ways of accessing spaces, etc. The featured images will be gathered by construction trade workers and UVic employees working in the MacLaurin Building during a seismic upgrade, and by the researcher/curator for this project, Dr. Wanda Hurren.