Category Archives: UVic Faculty and Alumni

Exhibitions that draw from the work of University of Victoria faculty, students and alumni.

Gathering: 25th Anniversary Masters and Doctoral Art Education

Dr. Margaret Travis, Untitled, scene of countryside
Dr. Margaret Travis, Untitled, scene of countryside

June 4 – September 25, 2009

Maltwood Art Museum and Gallery

Curated by Dr William Zuk and Dr Robert Dalton

View the online catalogue:

Gathering – Catalogue

Graduate Students and Faculty Honouring Dr. Margaret Travis with Gathering. Art Education celebrates 25 years of outstanding Graduate programs with an exhibition hosted by the Maltwood Art Museum and Gallery. The exhibition, Gathering, honours Dr. Margaret Travis and will show showcase artworks produced by its graduate students and faculty.

What began as a small group in the Art Education program became over 100 success stories. The exhibition also recognizes professors Geoff Hodder, George Steggles, John Cawood, Dr. Margaret Travis, Dr. Bill Zuk, Dr. Don Bergland, Dr. Robert Dalton and Dr. Mike Emme for their guidance and expertise.

MFA Visual Arts Exhibition

Allison Cake, Woodpile House
Allison Cake, Woodpile House

May 13 – August 16, 2009

Legacy Art Gallery Downtown

This summer the Legacy Art Gallery and Café brings a mixture of imaginative artworks from the studios of five young artists. Recently graduated MFA students Allison Cake, Katie Lyle , Shelly Penfold, Sara Robichaud and Ethan Wills share their top explorative pieces in their final thesis exhibition for the Fine Arts Masters program at UVic. The exhibit features a variety of works, from soapstone sculptures in the form of every day objects, to paintings of ghostly young women, to abstract wooden structures.

“Looking over these works, we see five artists committed in their disparate manners to a similar end: the creation of possible itineraries of the imagination. … A parallel universe, if you will, summoned forth from studio space.”
-Kitty Scott from Studio Space, UVic MFA 2009

Inverting the Lens

inverting lens

June 6 – July 30, 2009

Legacy Maltwood (at Mearns Centre – McPherson Library)

Curated by Robbyn Gordon Lanning

This exhibit features photography by the al Manaja’as, a Bedouin family of the Howeitat trib from Humayma, Jordan. In collaboration with UVic Graduate student, Robbyn Gordon Lanning, members of the al Manja’a family take images of their community, family and daily life. These images are key to investigating how the al Manaja’as see photography as a way of documenting their lives and experiences for themselves, their families, and for cultural outsiders.

As residents of Humayma, a region of great historical cultural exchange, members of the al Manaja’a family possess complex relationships with photography. The family has spent many years cultivating personal photographic albums comprised of images made by visiting cultural outsiders, and more recently, have participated as representatives of the Humayma community through photographic exhibits created for local museum spaces. These exhibits, co-currated by Robbyn Gordon Lanning, brought together Ms. Gordon and the al Manaja’a family together through their shared interest in photography. The relationship formed during this initial project acted as a catalyst inspiring their most recent collaborative research.

The photographs featured in this exhibition were created by members of the al Manaja’a family to describe their experiences of community, place, family, relationship and identity as seen through their own lenses.

Woven in Time

August 7 – September 29, 2008

Legacy Maltwood (at Mearns Centre – McPherson Library)

This exhibtion contains photographs by UVic student, Ashley Akins. The images document rural life in Peru’s Patakancha Valley, where textile weaving is an integral, but endangered concept.

After volunteering in Peru to brush up on her Spanish, Akins noted that the tourism in the country was both a blessing and a curse. Travellers scoop up their intricate, colourful products but in the haste to sell the work of their elders, younger people are not learning the skills to keep the traditional craft alive. In response to this she create the Mosqoy Foundation (which means “to dream” in the communities’ Indigenous language) which has a three-fold motto-to “educate, preserve and connect”. It accomplishes this through two main projects: the Proyecto Colibri (Project Hummingbird) and Banco de Jovenes (Youth Bank).

Under the former, Akins buys the woven products and sells them at three times the purchase price. One third of the proceeds is returned to the weavers, another third goes to projects chosen by the communities, and another third goes to the Youth Bank to fund 20 students annually to attend post-secondary studies in Cusco, the nearest city.

Copper Thunderbird: Invention, Inspiration and Transformation

Mary Kerr, illustration of a costume designed for Copper Thunderbird

Mary Kerr, illustration of a costume designed for Copper Thunderbird

July 9 to November 30, 2008
Legacy Art Gallery and Cafe

Copper Thunderbird: Invention, Inspiration and Transformation featured painted works spanning three decades as well as costumes, drawings, and photographs created by UVic professor Mary Kerr from “Copper Thunderbird,” a play about Norval Morrisseau.

Artists mediate realities and bridge worlds. The shaman lives in two or more inter-visible worlds and functions traditionally as the go-between to bring back what he sees to make art and transform the world. The stage artist has to bridge the stage world to the audience. We were looking for a stage environment that would be a container for Norval’s Shaman and artist consciousness and Marie Clement’s script. We needed a theatrical world in it’s own right and not an illustration of his paintings or a documentary of his life. I envisioned the stage design as representing the interior of Norval’s mind, where everything in the play, all the events, real and imaginary, were seen through the shifting shapes and colours of shamanistic consciousness.

– Mary Kerr, Celebrated Canadian Stage Designer

 Media

Art Education Faculty Exhibition

Art Education Faculty Exhibit2008

January 15 – February 14, 2008

Legacy Maltwood (at Mearns Centre – McPherson Library)

Curated by Dr Robert Dalton and Dr William Zuk

As teachers and artists, the Faculty’s art educators reveal their diverse artistic interests and identities. These are explored in drawings, paintings, collages, prints, ceramics, sculpture, and light displays. This annual exhibit steps out of the classroom into the studios of art education to look at the creative energy which fuels their teaching. Community voice and intergenerational learning as part of building a strong art based education.

20 Years of Fine Furniture

20 Years of Fine Furniture

June 15 – August 20, 2007

Legacy Maltwood (at Mearns Centre – McPherson Library)

Organized by Cam Russell and Ken Guenter

This display showcases graduate work spanning Camosun College Program’s entire twenty-year history. Many exhibitors will be showing works based on specific themes and made from indigenous British Columbia wood. All of the entrants have stayed active in the furniture or woodworking industries and are submitting either a favorite piece made as a student or something made more recently as a professional.

Similar Exhibitions:

 

Master Minds: UVic Retirees Exhibit

Master Minds

April 13 – June 7, 2007

Maltwood Art Museum and Gallery

Combining the initiatives of the UVic Retirees Association and the Centre for Aging, this exhibit showcases the artistic talents of 22 UVic retirees. The multimedia collection is comprised of still life, landscape and figurative pieces, each demonstrating the contributions of the artists to the University and surrounding community.

Wadi to Jebel: Humayma – Landscape of Culture

November 7 – December 1, 2005

Legacy Maltwood (at Mearns Centre – McPherson Library)

Curated by Caroline Riedel and Robbyn Gordon Lanning

This was a presentation of the collaborative work of students, faculty and volunteer professionals who have been working under the direction of Dr. John Olseon (Greek and Roman Studies, University of Victoria) at the Humayma archaeological site in Jordan. This exhibit features historic artifacts and contemporary art forms as well as photography of the site and the relationships formed there. The photos were taken by Robbyn Gordon.

Humayama was on an ancient trade route and was occupied by the Roman military, then Byzantine Christian clergy, and then the Abbasids.

25th Anniversary Art Education Faculty Exhibition & Retrospective Honouring Marion Small

January 19 – February 24, 2005

Maltwood Art Museum and Gallery

Curated by Dr William Zuk

An exhibition of work by the Art Education faculty, reflecting on a personal vision and offering numerous perspectives on the human experience. Numerous materials and processes were explored fro oil and acrylic paintings, collages, and mixed media to digital prints and photographs. Distinguished by its coverage of historical, cultural, and environmental issues, the exhibition also maintained a healthy diversity of work.

The work of Marion Small was also displayed. Small was a former art education faculty member who passed away in 2003.

Across the Nation II

May 4 – May 31, 2004

Legacy Maltwood (at Mearns Centre – McPherson Library)

The second instalment of Arcoss the Nation, a juried Art Education exhibition of Canadian universities and colleges. The work featured offers numerous perspectives on the human experience as it reflects on a personal vision, while exploring the relationship of art education to the ideas and processes of the studio.

Holy Dog: Paintings by Karen Whyte

April 26 – May 25, 2003

Legacy Maltwood (at Mearns Centre – McPherson Library)

This was an exhibition of acrylic paintings by Karen Whyte. The title of the show is drawn from a quote by John Fire Lame Deer, of the Lakota Sioux First Nation (1903 – 1976), who said “We had no word for the strange animal we got from the white man – the horse. So we called it sunka wakan, ‘holy dog.'”

Horses have long figured in the human imagination. The image of the horse is a powerful symbol of death and creativity in many mythologies, but there are few examples of contemporary artists focusing on horses as content. Holy Dog explored the physicality of horse in both portraits and in more abstracted images.

Karen Whyte completed her masters at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education before studying art at the Victoria College of Art. At the time of the exhibition, she worked with UVIc in the Arts & Writing Co-op Program.