Ottawa’s art galleries will play host to artists from across Canada and around the world in 2010.
Two new exhibits will be opening at the Ottawa Art Gallery at 2 Daley Ave. on Feb. 25.
Subjecting Figures is a show about representations of the female body. It features many works from the OAG’s Firestone Collection of Canadian Art, as well as Ottawa artist Chantal Gervais, a professor of photography and video at the University of Ottawa.
Exploding View includes the work of artists from Ottawa, Winnipeg, Wisconsin, and Belgium. The guiding theme of the exhibition is the grotesque; exhibition curator Emily Falvey said that the artists’ work “explores this bizarre æsthetic dimension, a borderland between organic and inorganic, person and thing, living and non-living.”
H’Art of Ottawa, a studio that encourages self-expression for people with developmental disabilities, will be having an exhibit at the Ottawa Bagel Shop and Deli, 1321 Wellington St. W., from March 15 to May 3. The exhibit will feature about 80 paintings from the studio’s unique artists.
The National Gallery of Canada is gearing up for several special exhibitions in the coming months. Opening Feb. 5 is a collection of 19th-century French photography. The exhibit includes more than 100 photographs created by early photographic processes, including daguerreotypes and photogravure prints.
Also at the National Gallery will be a showing of Nicolas Baier’s latest works. Baier, an avant-garde Montreal-based photographer, has titled the exhibition Pareidolias. “Pareidolia” is the act of ascribing significance to an uncorrelated perception — for example, seeing shapes in clouds. Baier’s photography stimulates the imagination and encourages viewers to find their own pareidolias in his work. The show opens Feb. 12.
The National Gallery will also be presenting this year’s winners of the Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts, from April 3 to June 20. Seven artists will be recognized at the awards, including one who will win the Saidye Bronfman Award for fine crafts. The awards are usually announced in March.
