Keep RMG Fridays free with your donation on Giving Tuesday!

The RMG will be participating in Giving Tuesday Canada on December 1, 2015.All donations will help to keep access to RMG Fridays free for all. RMG Fridays is a rockin’ cultural coming together with art, music, films and fun on the first Friday of every month.

On RMG Fridays, the gallery buzzes with live musical performances, interactive art experiences, short films, open gallery spaces, studio activities, social mingling and more. It’s the place for music lovers, youth, families, artists, date nights, and culture-vultures. RMG Fridays is Free to attend and all ages are welcome.

Your donation will keep access to cultural activities at RMG Fridays free for everyone in our community. Help ignite culture and community!

Giving Tuesday is a national day of giving on December 1, 2015. It is a new Canadian movement for giving and volunteering, taking place each year after Cyber Monday. The “opening day of the giving season,” it is a day where charities, companies and individuals join together to share commitments, rally for favourite causes and think about others.

For more information and to make your donation visit givingtuesday.ca

Ray Mead: Living Within

Ray Mead: Living Within came together quickly as a result of a change in the RMG’s programming schedule. Whenever I go through the racks in the vault, Mead’s work begs for my attention so organizing this exhibition was an incredible pleasure.

Bringing together over thirty works by Mead that range from the 1940s to 1990 has solidified what I’ve always known: Ray Mead is a fabulous painter and a wonderful colourist. While it’s impossible to talk about favourites, I do have works that I’m drawn to more than others. One of these is Door. It’s a large (203 x 173 cm), post painterly oil on canvas work that was painted around 1961. Mead has spoken about his love of black: “black is a delightful colour—it has so many variations.” The blacks in Door have their own tonal variations: deeply saturated in parts, and less so in others. But it’s that orange—just visible beneath the circular element on the left and hugging the centre on the right margin that ties the work together for me.

In writing about Door, Mead says that metaphorically the work “was a door for me to pass into a new era of experimentation.” This fabulous painting has existed for over fifty years and still draws one in towards that new era.

Linda Jansma
Senior Curator
The Robert McLaughlin Gallery

RMG Fridays: Holiday Magic

Carolyn T’s powerful voice commands the stage, followed by an engaging performance with former “The Guess Who” member Dale Russell, accompanied by Artemis Chartier.

Support our community partner Feed the Need Durham by donating a non-perishable food item and enjoy a tea tasting by Honey and Tea. Join artist Mike Drolet in Gallery A.

For more information:
Carolyn T: http://www.carolyntband.com/
Feed the Need Durham: http://www.ftnd.ca/aboutus.3.php
Dale Russell: http://stellulamusic.com/index.php?show=70

On the first Friday of the month, join the RMG in celebrating local talent. The gallery buzzes with live musical performances, interactive art experiences, open gallery spaces, social mingling and more. Suitable for music lovers, youth, families, date nights, and culture-vultures.

Free to attend | 7-10pm | Cash Bar | All ages welcome.

Follow the twitter feed at #RMGFridays!

The RMG is grateful to the Ontario Trillium Foundation for their support of this programming.

Solitude by Holly King

In 2012, the RMG was gifted Solitude by Holly King. I placed the work in the permanent collection exhibition Objects May Be Closer Than They Appear, the following year. Now we have an opportunity to celebrate King’s work in a larger way with the mid-career retrospective Edging Towards the Mysterious.

Solitude is earlier than any of the work in the new exhibition. King practices mise en scène photography. Her process begins by staging her landscape settings in her studio using various props and materials. She then photographs the theatrical fabrications—the end result is the creation of “imaginary landscapes that hover between reality and fiction.” In Solitude, a horizon line helps to differentiate the dominating sky and the water. Two small islands, made of found foliage, are surrounded by the immense, never ending blue sky and water, giving, as the title suggests, a sense of remoteness. The island’s remoteness prompts thoughts of untouched/unexplored nature—a welcomed retreat. However, the materiality of the staged setting in this photograph—the painterly quality of the sky and the foliage used to suggest land—reminds the viewer of the artificiality of the waterscape. King’s sharp focus photography does not allow the viewer to mistake the landscape as real, but encourages instilling their own personal experiences through their memories and imagination with both the objects used and the constructed environment. The tension between illusion and reality in King’s work becomes a journey for the viewer to explore.

– Senior Curator Linda Jansma

Linda Jansma wins a writing award for Jock Macdonald: Evolving Form

The 2015 Ontario Association of Art Galleries (OAAG) Awards were presented on 18 November, 2015 at the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto. The Awards are annual, province-wide, juried awards of artistic merit and excellence. They recognize the new exhibitions, publications, programs and community partnerships commissioned and produced by Ontario’s public art galleries over the previous year.

During the ceremony, Linda Jansma, the RMG’s Senior Curator, received the Curatorial Writing Award, Major Text for the essay entitled “Jock Macdonald, Dr. Grace W. Pailthorpe and Reuben Mednikoff: A Lesson in Automatics” for the exhibition Jock Macdonald: Evolving Form. The 208-page catalogue features essays, as well as full-color photography, and was printed by Black Dog publishing. The publication also features texts by co-curators Ian M. Thom and Michelle Jacques, an essay by scholar Dr. Anna Hudson, excerpts from Macdonald’s correspondence and a diary the artist kept while living in Nootka Sound from 1935 to 1936.

“The OAAG awards are important because they represent the best in work from Ontario art galleries, as reviewed by our peers. I am thrilled to receive this award. – Linda Jansma, Senior Curator, The Robert McLaughlin Gallery

The exhibition Jock Macdonald: Evolving Form was organized by the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, and The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, and was curated by Ian M. Thom, Michelle Jacques and Linda Jansma. The exhibition was held at the RMG from 3 February to 24 May, 2015. For more information about the exhibition, please visit the project’s website at jockmacdonald.org.

SPIN II by Katrina Jennifer Bedford

Guests at RMG Exposed, the annual juried photography auction and fundraiser for the Robert McLaughlin Gallery, will walk directly into one of the evening’s works of art: a large-scale projection installation entitled SPIN, by photographer and Durham College Professor, Katrina Jennifer Bedford. We sat down with Sam Mogelonsky, the RMG’s Manager of Marketing and Communications, to learn more about SPIN.

SPIN was first exhibited in 2012 at Nuit Blanche. How did it come to the attention of the RMG, then become part of RMG Exposed 2015?

Katrina Jennifer Bedford is an artist I have been following for a few years. Her work with photography had always interested me, in particular the SPIN project which was presented at Nuit Blanche Toronto and also at Cambridge Galleries Unsilent Night. This project activates the space in such a dynamic way that when we began considering RMG Exposed 2015, I immediately thought of this project and suggested it as an artist project for the event. Katrina was on board and excited about the possibility of re-staging it at the RMG and the collaboration went from there. We were thrilled to receive support from Durham College, where she teaches in the Digital Photography and Video programs, as well as Ed Video for technical support and Posterjack for the production of the SPIN limited edition print.

What’s the significance of installing SPIN in the lobby of the RMG, rather than in a gallery?

We like to think of the entire RMG building as a whole – the experience begins when you walk up the stairs and isn’t confined to one particular gallery space. As much as I enjoy seeing art presented in the “white cube” gallery space, I am equally thrilled and engaged when art is presented in unexpected places, such as corners, hallways, and in this case, our lobby. Besides, the ironic limestone wall in the lobby space is a perfect canvas for a temporary art installation!

How to you hope visitors will feel, or “take away” from SPIN?

I hope people will be as captivated by the project as I was when I first saw it. The simple action of the disco ball rotating in stop motion is almost hypnotic and certainly visually stunning when presented at such a large scale. Since it’s presented at RMG Exposed, I hope people will recognize the significance of both the analogue and digital in photography and video and be inspired to purchase a photograph during the auction, or one of the limited edition prints of SPIN. I know I will.

How does SPIN enhance the viewing experience of RMG Exposed? Should it influence how guests look at the photographs in the exhibition?

My hope is that the projection will draw the viewer in form outside and they will be engaged and excited about the event from the moment they walk into the RMG. By changing the lobby through the video, I hope that guests will appreciate the transformative properties of art and consider purchasing one of the great photos up at auction to transform their own living spaces. It may or may not have any bearing on how guests view the photographs in the auction, but certainly will provide an amazing backdrop for visitors to enjoy the event!

Can you tell me about the limited edition of SPIN?

The RMG is thrilled to be collaborating with Katrina on a limited edition of SPIN. The artist print of the project will be available for $50 in support of the RMG’s community outreach programs. The 8×12″ fine art prints are printed with archival ink on 100% cotton Hahnemïhle photo rag. Prints can be purchased in advance at rmgexposed.ca or during the event. Support of this edition is generously provided by Posterjack.

RMG Exposed will be held at the Robert McLaughlin Gallery (72 Queen Street), on November 14, 2015, from 7 pm to 10 pm. Tickets are $30.

About the artist:

Katrina Jennifer Bedford is a photographer, art educator and cultural advocate. She currently holds the position of Professor at Durham College teaching in the Digital Photography and Video Production programs. Jennifer has worked with notable not-for-profit organizations such as the Art Gallery of Hamilton, Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery, Cambridge Libraries and Galleries, Contemporary Art Forum Kitchener Area (CAFKA), Art Gallery of Burlington, and Oakville Galleries. Her photographs have been exhibited in Canada and the United States and her photos have been published in Azure magazine, Border Crossings, Canadian Art online, C Magazine and in numerous Canadian exhibition catalogues. For more information visit kjbedford.ca.

This article was originally written for What’s On Oshawa. Please visit http://whatsonoshawa.com/index.php/2015/11/10/behind-the-scenes-with-spin-at-rmg-exposed/

Public Art Guide of Oshawa

Have you picked up your Public Art Map of Oshawa yet? This guide features images and maps of public sculptures and murals through the city!

We are proud to have partnered with the City of Oshawa, Parkwood Estate, the Oshawa Community Museum, Durham College and University Institute of Ontario (UOIT) to realize this project!