The following questions concern works shown in the exhibition. Write down what you observe about each work and then compare your notes to the answers.
Question 1: What sort of setting does Jack Bishop illustrate in revisiting the Canadian landscape tradition?
Question 2: What type of space does Dil Hildebrand depict in this work?
Question 3: What is Tammi Campbell’s intention in making it appear that this work is not finished and that a final line remains to be painted before the masking tape can be removed?
Question 4: What does Ben Reeves’s painting Detail – Laurel Street represent?
Question 5: What gives this work a sculptural quality?
Question 6: What role does writing play in this work by Michael Dumontier & Neil Farber?
Question 7: What makes this work a hybrid creation?
Question 8: Which elements of this composition refer to the encounter of two cultures?
Question 9: Which aspects of this painting lend it a fictional quality?
The following questions concern works shown in the exhibition. Write down what you observe about each work and then compare your notes to the answers.
Question 1: What sort of setting does Jack Bishop illustrate in revisiting the Canadian landscape tradition?
Question 2: What type of space does Dil Hildebrand depict in this work?
Question 3: What is Tammi Campbell’s intention in making it appear that this work is not finished and that a final line remains to be painted before the masking tape can be removed?
Question 4: What does Ben Reeves’s painting Detail – Laurel Street represent?
Question 5: What gives this work a sculptural quality?
Question 6: What role does writing play in this work by Michael Dumontier & Neil Farber?
Question 7: What makes this work a hybrid creation?
Question 8: Which elements of this composition refer to the encounter of two cultures?
Question 9: Which aspects of this painting lend it a fictional quality?
© 2013, Galerie de l'UQAM. All Rights Reserved.
Photo : Jack Bishop, courtesy Gallery Page and Strange, Halifax
Jack Bishop
2011
Oil on canvas
127 x 157 cm
© 2013, Galerie de l'UQAM. All Rights Reserved.
Photo : Dil Hildebrand, courtesy Pierre-François Ouellette Art contemporain, Montréal
Dil Hildebrand
2010
Oil on canvas
193 x 152 cm
© 2013, Galerie de l'UQAM. All Rights Reserved.
Photo : Tammi Campbell, courtesy Galerie Hugues Charbonneau, Montréal
Tammi Campbell
Acrylic on matboard
29,21 x 29,21 cm
© 2013, Galerie de l'UQAM. All Rights Reserved.
Photo: Ben Reeves, courtesy Equinox Gallery, Vancouver, and Jessica Bradley Art + Projects, Toronto
Ben Reeves
2011
Oil on burlap mounted on wood panel
61 x 73,7 cm
© 2013, Galerie de l'UQAM. All Rights Reserved.
Photo: M. N. Hutchinson, courtesy TrépanierBaer Gallery, Calgary
DaveandJenn
2010
Acrylic and mixed media
182 x 335 x 23 cm
Collection particulière, Calgary
© 2013, Galerie de l'UQAM. All Rights Reserved.
Photo: Michael Dumontier & Neil Farber, courtesy Division Gallery, Montreal
Michael Dumontier & Neil Farber
2011
Acrylic, marker and pen on paper
10 x 15 cm
© 2013, Galerie de l'UQAM. All Rights Reserved.
Photo: Yan Giguère, courtesy Galerie Hugues Charbonneau, Montreal
Marie-Claude Bouthillier
2010
Installation
213 x 335 x 335 cm
© 2013, Galerie de l'UQAM. All Rights Reserved.
Photo: Joseph Tisiga, courtesy the artist
Joseph Tisiga
2011
Oil on canvas
137,2 x 160 cm
© 2013, Galerie de l'UQAM. All Rights Reserved.
Photo: Louis-Philippe Côté, courtesy Galerie Simon Blais, Montreal
Louis-Philippe Côté
2010 - 2011
Oil on linen canvas
265 x 330 cm
© 2013, Galerie de l'UQAM. All Rights Reserved.
Question 1 : Answer
Jack Bishop revisits the Canadian landscape tradition in terms not of natural but of commercial space, where ubiquitous retail outlets dictate use of the land and proclaim its occupation. The densely crowded compositions map out a geography of anonymity, a sort of nowhere typical of the outskirts of large North American cities.
Question 2 : Answer
Unlike the artist’s earlier works, this window opens neither onto the world nor onto the landscape. Instead, it offers an introspective view of a closed space, a space of creation, where the “doing” of painting takes place.
Question 3 : Answer
Masking tape is generally associated with the hard-edge technique, where it is used as a tool to execute perfectly straight lines and geometric shapes. In representing it here, the artist highlights the production process and challenges the viewer’s power of observation.
Question 4 : Answer
Detail – Laurel Street is part of a new series of works whose motifs are at once hyper-figurative and abstract. It is an enlarged detail of a scene set on Laurel Street, in the artist
Read More
Question 1 : Answer
Jack Bishop revisits the Canadian landscape tradition in terms not of natural but of commercial space, where ubiquitous retail outlets dictate use of the land and proclaim its occupation. The densely crowded compositions map out a geography of anonymity, a sort of nowhere typical of the outskirts of large North American cities.
Question 2 : Answer
Unlike the artist’s earlier works, this window opens neither onto the world nor onto the landscape. Instead, it offers an introspective view of a closed space, a space of creation, where the “doing” of painting takes place.
Question 3 : Answer
Masking tape is generally associated with the hard-edge technique, where it is used as a tool to execute perfectly straight lines and geometric shapes. In representing it here, the artist highlights the production process and challenges the viewer’s power of observation.
Question 4 : Answer
Detail – Laurel Street is part of a new series of works whose motifs are at once hyper-figurative and abstract. It is an enlarged detail of a scene set on Laurel Street, in the artist’s neighbourhood. He has framed one of the raindrops from that scene and reproduced it using thick daubs of paint and heavy brushstrokes. The painting is thus self-referential, in that the earlier work has become the subject of new exploration.
Question 5 : Answer
Although DaveandJenn’s primary medium is painting, their process of accumulation is close to sculpture. Dozens of layers of resin are laid on and condensed into a single image. Each layer brings new elements, adding, overlaying and, necessarily, obliterating others.
Question 6 : Answer
Writing plays a key role in Michael Dumontier & Neil Farber’s artistic approach. It provides a context for the image, with the carefully chosen words serving as a sort of punch line. The text is added at the end of the process and usually determines the picture’s meaning. It is through the text that the narrative of each work is revealed, and that the reason for the conversation between a carrot and a little black figure can be deduced.
Question 7 : Answer
By combining the languages of installation and sculpture, the artist takes painting beyond its traditional two dimensions. Visitors can move around inside the work, which is hybrid because it blends two artistic disciplines.
Question 8 : Answer
Joseph Tisiga has revisited Native iconography in paintings where two worlds – First Nations and Western – coexist and interact. This painting opens a door to the artist’s imaginary world through the figure of Red Chief. Seated at a campfire, the chief appears to be in conversation with the ghost of an ancestor. The apparition wears a traditional feather headdress, while the chief sports a top hat and Western clothes. The juxtaposition of different cultural codes illustrates the dislocation of First Nations peoples, caught between two worlds.
Question 9 : Answer
This work pictures real-life elements and is based largely on current events, but the characters’ attitudes, the painting style and the enigmatic action create a sense of hallucination. Also, the faces are masked or obscured, which contributes to the threatening appearance of the represented place.
© 2013, Galerie de l'UQAM. All Rights Reserved.
Learning Objectives
Test your knowledge on both the history of Canadian art and contemporary painting. Allow ten minutes to answer to questions.