In the digital age, the debate about viewing artworks online versus in person has many sides. Crowdsourced projects like Community Curates give voice to both— the accessibility of online collections, as well as the pleasure of seeing the works
in person in the resulting exhibition.

Over the summer, we launched our second crowdsourced exhibition project Community Curates II. We divided the online survey into categories: landscape, portrait, prints, abstract, still life, and photography. An art curator must remain as objective as possible, so the categories ensured that results would reflect the vast diversity of our collection and also challenge participants to consider work they might not have immediately chosen. This was particularly effective in the abstract category. Comments made it clear that while many participants appreciate abstract art, it is still challenging for others. For example, some of the posted comments include:

“both of my choices are for the same reason, they bring an instant feeling of what the artist is trying to convey, clearly.”

“I’m not very keen on abstract art…”

“I really like the Alexandra Luke, “Design for a Plate” 1948 because it looks like a picture of the world”

The Community Curates II exhibition ranges from work by historical artist Paul Peel to contemporary work by David Bierk. It reflects our community’s desire to engage with the RMG collection in new ways. It demonstrates that there are definite benefits to making art more accessible online—with our hope ultimately being to encourage people to visit the gallery to see art in person.

 

On the 18th of June 1812, the United States of America declared war on the British North American colonies in what is today Central and Eastern Canada. The war raged between 1812-1815, and was a defining moment in Canada’s history as a nation. Had the American invasion been successful, Canada would not exist as we know it today.

The war had national and international  significance, and also greatly impacted smaller communities. Though Durham Region saw no military action, the lives of the people who ultimately settled here were acutely affected.

The founders and leaders of the townships of Pickering, Whitby, Oshawa and Darlington (now known as Bowmanville), were  veterans of the War of 1812. One such veteran, Thomas Henry, was an Oshawa founder and influential reverend. In Memoirs of Rev. Thomas Henry, the author attributes Rev. Henry’s war experience to developing the “integrity, energy, perseverance and economy that characterized his afterlife.”

This exhibition explores the individuals, such as Peter Matthews (Pickering), Jabez Lynde (Whitby), John Kerr (Oshawa), and John C. Trull (Darlington) who rose to positions of leadership in Durham Region, bringing their experiences in the war with them. It tells the stories of those who contributed both to the War of 1812, as well as to the growth and success of this community.

Jennifer Marman and Daniel Borins have practiced art together since 2000. The work that has emerged through this partnership includes kinetic sculpture, installation, painting, and multidisciplinary art. It is collaborative in more than one sense—it does combine the expected artistic act of the duo working together, however it also addresses narrative overtones such as being conniving conspirators, or a confrontation between opposing views. The resulting work is a series of  encounters, questions, and examinations of contemporary art and culture.

Their work has been described as accessible, engaging, and free of pretense, yet still it can be considered complex in concept. In one example, Pavilion of the Blind, the visitor confronts an energetic sculpture that is at once an imposing architectural structure and a playful abstract composition. As the blinds move and reconfigure, a colourful array of panels congregate into different formations. An underlying question is a theoretical examination of what constitutes a contemporary artwork, and this is reinforced by the paintings also included in the exhibition.

Politics, pop culture, the avant garde, and modernism, are all referenced in this refreshing and playful exhibition.

The works in Making Methods focus on concepts of repetition, detail, and labour as a means of production. They arise in an era when rapid digital and non-physical experiences are commonplace. In this exhibition, art by three emerging Toronto-based artists demonstrate a deliberate engagement with the physical, through material. This modernization of craft-based processes, could indicate an increased focus on hand-rendered art.

Although each of the artist’s work is steeped in process, it is not, however, the process alone that makes their work compelling. Becky Ip’s video To cry (of birds) draws on her family history. The artist’s meticulous research, followed by graphite drawings, which are then translated to paintings on mylar and recorded to experimental film, create a final work that is a dream-like and very personal portrait of the artist’s family history. Accompanying the film is a paper sculpture installation, each piece intuitively cut and folded.

Mark Stebbins’ paintings deal in the art of the error—the glitch—and reference computer games or data. His meticulous process is a manipulation of material, which includes paint and ink, allowing us to draw comparison to textiles
such as knitting and embroidery. The result is works of incredible detail and colourful pattern that celebrate error by purposely producing glitches–something referred to as glitch-alikes.

Sam Mogelonsky’s sculptures are experiments in material and labour, each made with disarmingly excessive method. In one example, the artist works with sequins, sewing pins, and a document tube, creating an object that at first glance is smooth and soothing, but upon closer inspection reveals an interior that is sharp, overlapping, and dangerous. Mogelonsky re-presents the sculptures in a series of photographs of their interiors to hallucinogenic effect.

Though this exhibition reveals the “type” of process by which each artist produces their work, the significance of their practices is revealed through the artists’ individual sensibility and intent.

 

In 2008 guest curator Micah Donovan travelled to Nova Scotia, and at the Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site, saw photographs of Bell’s experimental kites. In contemplating the connections between inventing new shapes for kiting, and allowing the imagination to dream up new concepts of communication, a curatorial question emerged; “When we play, what does the world reveal to us that is otherwise invisible?” 

Drift is the exhibition that has resulted from this thought process about experimentation. Humans, though unable to fully comprehend the world they inhabit, certainly find their way. This idea of not-knowing is central in the art-making process, as it is so often in the accidental discovery that the most inventive art emerges.

In the creative process, the ability to engage with the unknown—results of experiments, discovery of new materials, accidents, or drifting away from original intent—is a powerful tool that translates in resulting work. The projects in this exhibition offer a glimpse of differing strategies that move within the unknown. This exhibition includes the aforementioned photographs of Alexander Graham Bell from the collection of the Government of Canada, as well as video works by Callum Cooper, Klara Hobza, and Kristan Horton, and sculpture by Marc Ganzglass, and Christof Migone.

Read the Catalogue!

Seeing “Then and Now” images side by side puts into perspective just how much Oshawa has changed in the last 100 years. Once again, The Robert McLaughlin Gallery teamed up with the Oshawa Senior Citizens’ Camera Club to examine the evolution of Oshawa—this time focusing on the Four Corners. Using historical images from the Thomas Bouckley Collection as a starting point, members of the club photographed the Four Corners as it appears today.

The intersection of King and Simcoe Streets, known as “The Four Corners”, has always been the undisputed center of Oshawa. From its humble beginnings as a small settlement community to becoming the 14^th largest metropolitan area in Canada, Oshawa grew out of the Four Corners to become what it is today. As Oshawa branched out, expanding and growing on all sides, the heart of the downtown remained the Four Corners. The Thomas Bouckley Collection and Oshawa Seniors’ Camera Club’s photos show the transition of the downtown, and the revitalization it is currently undergoing.

 

The 1930’s was an era of transition in Canadian art. The influence of European masters in the early 20th century had brought a sense of internationalism to Canada, while a new generation of American painters created a thirst for modernism. The conservative Canadian art world was long established on traditional, figurative works of art, particularly landscape paintings displayed in the collective work of the Group of Seven. Outside influences, however, meant that at the same time some artists were working to develop new forms of representation, offering a fresh approach. Abstracted Lenses explores the transition in Canadian art from the objective to the nonrepresentational, highlighting the processes involved and the pioneers who initiated abstract art in Canada.

Through experimentation, a few artists working in Canada aimed to purify art by fracturing, manipulating, and striping their subjects down to their core elements. Emphasizing a harmonious relationship between line and form, they were able to harness an ideal abstract quality, in essence re-imagining the perceived world around them. This innovative approach used colour as a vehicle to convey mood or atmosphere rather than signify an element of nature and an emphasis on overall design was favoured. The systematic process of non-figurative artwork sought to create a universal art form, which significantly helped awaken fundamentally new approaches to creative expression.

The exhibition includes selections from the RMG’s permanent collection featuring Henrietta Shore, Bertram Brooker, Jock Macdonald, and Kathleen Munn.

Geographic neighbours Detroit, Michigan and Windsor, Ontario share a border, as well as a distinctive urban environment. Christopher McNamara, an artist interested in sound as much as the visual experience, works on both sides of this border, and through his work reveals a narrative imbued with technology and fascinated with the pace of everyday experience.

This exhibition includes two works that explore the sights and sounds of cities caught by camera, and relocated to installation and short film. His latest work, Falling in Place, is inspired by a somber short story of the same name written by the artist’s father, Eugene McNamara. It tells us the account of a young woman, a pianist, and the accompanying tale of the train engineer who drives the locomotive that eventually strikes her. It is a haunting tale (told through three 3D films that are shown simultaneously) reinterpreted into unsettling, but beautiful, films.

In the work Amulet City: On Location, McNamara provides us with a city populated by narratives, stories housed in tiny buildings constructed complete with billboards and branded signs. The buildings reveal the influence of geography on the artist, and yet they are not tied to any specific location. These miniature landscapes create a sense of nostalgia, yet embody a place that never was.

This exhibition brings to the forefront small details of lives lived and makes them iconic, in effect creating familiar worlds we sense we may have inhabited.

 

Each year at our fundraiser RMG Exposed we hold a juried photography competition that strives to increase awareness of contemporary photography while supporting our institution’s education and community programming. Tom Ridout’s entry was the winner of Best Overall Submission at RMG Exposed 2012 and received the RBC Emerging Photography Award. This exhibition is the result.

Ridout’s educational foundation and years of experience in landscape architecture has provided him with an understanding of natural and constructed urban landscapes. This insight forms the basis of his photographic projects. His approach to photography is technical; maximizing clarity, avoiding abstractions of focus, colour manipulation, or perspective distortion. This camera-centred approach refuses computer software from injecting a signature, and instead offers images in clear, highly realistic detail.

In this series, Ridout has studied structures, specifically those that are impacted by scaffolding. In German, the term “eingehüllt” means shrouded, wrapped, or cocooned. The shrouds covering structures ultimately change and inform the understanding of what lies within as the interaction between the original structure and the scaffolding cover together create a visual synergy of light and form.

The add-ons to the architecture are typically there as part of a repair effort, but the result is the creation of a new structure altogether, one that is visually much different than what lies beneath. This temporary carapace redefines our perceptions, and ultimately, can function as an analogy to how we perceive other people, cultures, and environments.