Tag Archives: British Columbia

Fire Season

April 20, 2024 – September 7, 2024

Legacy Downtown | 630 Yates St.
Lekwungen territory

Canadian artist collective Fire Season presents an exhibition of works from their biennial publication, an edited journal of written and visual sense-making on the topic of wildfires. The exhibition features poetry, visual art, photography, and video installation from contributors to the Fire Season book and archival wildfire materials from the BC Forest Discovery Centre to take a comprehensive and inclusive look at how wildfire continues to impact British Columbia in a kaleidoscope of cultural, political, industrial, and ecological ways.

Curated by Amory Abbott and Liz Toohey-Wiese.

Participating artists:

Amory Abbott
Sara-Jeanne Bourget
Ana Diab
Kerri Flannigan
Jonathan S. Green
Jude Griebel
Colton Hash
Eli Hirtle
Sylvia McKelvie
Andreas Rutkauskas
Kyle Scheurmann
Liz Toohey-Wiese

Image: Sara-Jeanne Bourget, Charcoal Studies II, 2021.

Latent

January 6 – April 6, 2024

Legacy Downtown | 630 Yates St.
Lekwungen territory

The exhibition Latent emerges from conversations between artist Lynda Gammon and curator Carolyn Butler Palmer over the past several years about how artists who identify as women are often overlooked, ignored and sidestepped. At the Legacy Art Galleries, over the past decade the majority of solo exhibitions have featured the work of women artists and this exhibition furthers a desire to bring forward their work by honouring the many women who remain hidden in the University of Victoria’s Art Collection and the mechanisms that conceal them from view: the vault, accessioning, and the catalogue.

Artist bio: Lynda Gammon
See all events: Latent events & programs

Image: 12-minute meditation on untitled (serigraph), Elza Mayhew, n.d., Lynda Gammon, 2023.

Untitled ṮEṮÁĆES

September 23 – December 9, 2023

Legacy Downtown | 630 Yates St.
Lekwungen territory

Untitled ṮEṮÁĆES is the result of an artistic collaboration between TEMOSEṈ Charles “Chazz” Elliott (Lekwungen/W̱SÁNEĆ), Jesse Campbell (Métis) and Dr. Kim Shortreed to prototype a motion-activated art installation that speaks aloud toponyms, or place names, in SENĆOŦEN and English.

This non-traditional map is an artograph of the islands that surround W̱SÁNEĆ territories, in the Salish Sea, including the place settlers call the Saanich Peninsula.

Haptic refers to the sensation of touch, position, and motion. Using a haptic map, viewers are invited to experience connections to place through representations of landscape and place names, and to provide a way to learn orally about SENĆOŦEN and settler namescapes through curiosity and play.

Full exhibition text available online.

Explore the Untitled ṮEṮÁĆES 3D virtual exhibition.

Image: Chazz Elliott, Kim Shortreed, Jesse Campbell, Untitled ṮEṮÁĆES (detail), 2023

Dance Like Everybody’s Watching

January 14 – April 8, 2023

Legacy Downtown Sidewalk Gallery | 630 Yates St.
Lekwungen territory

Local artist Simone Blais presents her debut documentary, Dance Like Everybody’s Watching. The short film exposes the lives of three Black dancers in Victoria, BC (lək̓ʷəŋən territory) as they expose their worlds of flamenco, hip hop, and dancehall. While the dancers grapple with racism, tokenism, and stereotypes, we are reminded that dance is always political. This film deals with themes of cultural appropriation in dance and is uniquely a BC production. 100% of the production, cast and crew are based in Victoria, BC.

Image: still from Dance Like Everybody’s Watching.

Pop Anthropology

Oct 23, 2021 – Nov 13, 2022

Legacy Maltwood Gallery | On campus in the Mearns Centre – McPherson Library

Curated by Dorian Jesse Fraser, Doctoral Candidate, Concordia University (UVic MA, 2013).

Watch: Pop Goes the Art! Curator Talk

Read: West Coast Modernism and the Pop Sauvage of Eric Metcalfe, essay by Dorian Jesse Fraser

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.

The Averted Eye Sees: The Life and Work of Glenn Howarth – Part II

October 15, 2016 to January 7, 2017

Curated by Jenelle Pasiechnik (UVic MA, 2015)
With supervision from Caroline Riedel (Legacy Art Galleries)

Legacy Art Gallery Downtown | 630 Yates Street

Exhibition Website

Glenn Howarth was a pillar in Victoria’s arts scene from the late 1970s until his death in 2009. He also had an enduring connection to the University of Victoria — as a Visual Arts student in the 1960s, a sessional instructor, an artist-in-residence with the Engineering Department, and recently with a bequest of his archival papers and digital art. Howarth was an innovative creator and inspired teacher searching for ways to communicate the artistic process and the perceptual functions of the eye and brain that contribute to visual perception. His work was often infused with surrealistic imagery which recalls the work of Francis Bacon. Howarth was also responsible for innovations in computer graphic art in the early 1980s working on the Telidon system as an artist in residence at UVic’s Engineering Department with Dr. Ernest Chang. He represented Canada with this work in the Sao Paulo Biennale and at Expo 86.

The Averted Eye Sees draws on UVic’s significant collection of Howarth paintings primarily from the Michael C. Williams estate, as well as Howarth’s writing, sketches, ephemera, and digital archive, part of the regional artists archive initiative of UVic Libraries Special Collections and Archives. It also includes a fascinating case study on the challenges of ‘retro-computing’ in recreating Howarth’s early experiments in digital artwork.

Due to the popularity of the exhibition on campus this summer, a second edition of this exhibition will be featured in the small gallery downtown, allowing for the viewing of a larger selection of Howarth’s powerful oeuvre.

The Averted Eye Sees: The Life and Work of Glenn Howarth

July 30, 2016 to October 23, 2016

Curated by Jenelle Pasiechnik (UVic MA, 2015)
With supervision from Caroline Riedel (Legacy Art Galleries)

Legacy Maltwood (at the Mearns Centre – McPherson Library)

Exhibition Website

Glenn Howarth was a pillar in Victoria’s arts scene from the late 1970s until his death in 2009. He was an innovative creator and inspired teacher searching for ways to communicate the artistic process and the perceptual functions of the eye and brain that contribute to visual perception. He was also responsible for innovations in computer graphic art in the early 1980s working on the Telidon system as an artist in residence in the Engineering Department at the University of Victoria campus with Dr. Ernest Chang. In 1983 he represented Canada in the Sao Paulo Biennale with some of this work and also presented it locally at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria and UVic’s Maltwood Art Museum and Gallery.

The Averted Eye Sees draws on UVic’s significant collection of Howarth paintings from the Michael C. Williams estate, as well as Howarth’s writing, sketches, ephemera, and digital archive, part of the regional artists archive initiative of UVic Libraries Special Collections and Archives. It also includes a fascinating case study on the challenges of ‘retro-computing’ in recreating Howarth’s early experiments in digital artwork.

Curator’s Tour + Reception

The Averted Eye Sees: The Life and Work of Glenn Howarth

October 7, 3:30-5pm

Free & open to the Public

Room 027 – Legacy Maltwood (at the Mearns Centre – McPherson Library)

Join us for a curator’s tour and special showing of archival materials to celebrate local artist and educator Glenn Howarth and his lifelong obsession with visual perception. The exhibition includes paintings, drawings, prints and Howarth’s pioneering work in digital art (recently restored by the UVic Libraries), for which he received international recognition at the 1983 Sao Paulo Biennale and at Expo 86. Highlights of Howarth’s extensive personal archive including journals, letters, sketches and photographs will be seen at this one-time event. Reception to follow.

Guest curator Jenelle M. Pasechnik was the recipient of the 2015 Margaret Russell Graduate Internship in Curatorial Studies, which supports the preservation of art created by BC artists.

Emerging Through the Fog : Tsa-qwa-supp and Tlehpik – Together

February 13, to May 28, 2016

Curated by Hjalmer Wenstob | With supervisory guidance from Williams Legacy Chair, Dr. Carolyn Butler-Palmer

Legacy Art Gallery Downtown 630 Yates Street
This is an exhibition of two Nuu-chah-nulth men, “Fog-God” Art Thompson from Ditidaht (1948-2003) and Hjalmer Wenstob from Tla-o-qui-aht. Two artists, two friends. Two lives together.

Featuring the prints and paintings of Art Thompson/Tsa-qwa-supp from the collection of the Legacy Art Galleries and interactive carvings by contemporary artist Hjalmer Wenstob/Tlehpik, whose work is inspired by and resonates with that of his teacher and friend Tsa-qwa-supp. Tsa-qwa-supp taught for many years and inspired a number of artists who continue his work in this day.

Emerging Through The Fog seeks to honour and commemorate the life and work of the dedicated teacher Tsa-qwa-supp on the occasion of Tlehpik’s B.F.A from the University of Victoria’s Visual Arts Department. We invite you to join us in celebrating the life of Tsa-qwa-supp, an inspiring and caring teacher.

Image (detail), Tlehpika, Hjalmer Wenstob.

unlimited edition

July 4 – September 26, 2015

Legacy Art Gallery Downtown 630 Yates Street

unlimited edition is organized by the Kamloops Art Gallery.

Curated by Tania Willard (Secwepemc), Aboriginal Curator in Residence, Kamloops Art Gallery

To view the exhibition catalogue, click here.

Kenojuak Ashevak, Inuit | Carl Beam, Ojibwe | Robert Davidson, Haida | Charles Greul | Chuuchkamalathnii, Nuu-chah-nulth | Mark Henderson, Kwakwaka’wakw | Richard Hunt, Kwakwaka’wakw | Ellen Neel, Kwakwaka’wakw | Pudlo Pudlat, Inuit | Daphne Odjig, Odawa-Potawatomi | Walter J Phillips | Bill Reid, Haida | Chief Henry Speck, Kwakwaka’wakw | Art Thompson, Nuu-chah-nulth | Art Wilson, Gitsxan
With artists from the University of Victoria Art Collection: Doug Cranmer, Kwakwaka’wakw | Joe David, Nuu-chah-nulth | Stan Greene, Coast Salish | Roy Henry Vickers, Tsimshian Haida heilstuk | Susan Point, Coast Salish
unlimited edition attempts to construct an art historical framework that looks at how prints by Aboriginal and Inuit artists represented in the Kamloops Art Gallery’s permanent collection, supplemented by works on loan from the Carleton University Art Gallery and Legacy Art Galleries, represent a drive to preserve, portray and popularize oral histories and address social inequities in the medium of printmaking. Featuring prints from Northwest Coast, Woodlands and Inuit artists with a focus on an early period of printmaking in the 50s through to the 70s, unlimited edition showcases prints that relate to ideas of cultural story, politics of land, and the beauty of Indigenous aesthetics.

Image Spirit Owl, Kenojuak Ashevak (Inuit), from Kenojuak Lithography series, 1979

CURATOR’S TALK /// Saturday, September 26, 2pm | Legacy Art Gallery Downtown 630 Yates Street /// Free & open to the public

This project is funded in part by the Government of Canada.

Salish Reflection: Coast Salish Art and Artists on Campus

Conservation, Chris Paul

August 15, 2014 – January 10, 2015

Legacy Small Gallery

Curated in collaboration by Caroline Riedel, Justine Auben Drummond & Dr. Andrea Walsh

This exhibition honours Coast Salish artists Chris Paul, Maynard Johnny Jr., and knitters May Sam and the Olsen family (Adam, Joni, and their mother Sylvia) who were part of the University of Victoria’s Visiting Artist Program through the Department of Anthropology between 2011 and 2013. During their 3 month residency they taught students about their own artistic practices as well as aspects of Coast Salish history and contemporary culture. The exhibit illustrates the teaching methodology and experience of students and artists in collaboration along with examples of the artists’ work.

The Artist in Residence Program is facilitated by Dr. Andrea Walsh, who teaches the Anthropology of Art, and the program is supported by donors George and Christiane Smyth.

Perpetual Salish: Contemporary Coast Salish Art from the Salish Weave Collection

wHOle_W(((h)))orl(((d))). lesLIE

August 15, 2014 – January 10, 2015

Legacy Art Gallery Downtown

Curated by lessLIE

View the online catalogue:

Perpetual Salish – Catalogue

In this exhibition the theme of perpetuation unifies the work of five contemporary Coast Salish artists who live and work in this region. The word perpetuation is meant to suggest a continuum of ideas and processes, which come from distinctive traditions that have existed over millennia. Perpetuation also infers some of the challenges that contemporary Coast Salish artists continue to face in the contexts of colonialism and assimilation as well as the dominance of other Indigenous traditions, which were often favoured by the art world, in both commercial and educational contexts. It is only in the last three decades that Coast Salish art has become more readily recognized by a wider audience as distinct from other Northwest Coast traditions.

This exhibition presents a wide range of art forms and ideas, and visitors will gain a better understanding of the cultural and stylistic elements that unify and inspire these contemporary artists in their own artistic practices. Artists featured are Maynard Johnny Jr., lessLIE, John Marston, Susan Point and Dylan Thomas.

Watch the video:

Adaslā: The Movement of Hands

Sewing button blankets at First Peoples House. Photo by Michael Glendale

January 16 – April 25 2014

Legacy Art Gallery Downtown

This exhibition centres around the creation and exhibition of the World’s Biggest Button Blanket. Created over the fall 2013 academic term, in collaboration with students at UVic’s First Peoples House, the blanket invites new conversations about indigenous button blanket makers and the artistic traditions that surround them. A project of the Williams Legacy Chair in Modern and Contemporary Art of the Pacific Northwest.

For more info about the Big Button Blanket click here