By Robin Laurance
SAMUEL ROY-BOIS: PRESENCES
Kamloops Art Gallery, Kamloops. To Jun 29
Quebec-born, British Columbia-based artist Samuel Roy-Bois creates work that explores the ways in which the built environment defi nes our everyday spatial relations and shapes our understanding of the world. His current exhibition of sculptures and photographs includes improvisational constructions linked to or enclosing found objects. Through these he asks us to consider how manufactured objects may mediate experience and, the exhibition statement asserts, “reveal our tenuous relationship with the real.”
ACROSS THE TABLE
Nanaimo Art Gallery, Nanaimo. To Jun 30
Investigating ideas of shared learning and creative collaboration across generations, this group show was inspired by the working methods of Snuneymuxw artists William Good and Joel Good. Father and son, they frequently carve together, sitting across from each other at the kitchen table. Also represented here – and employing a range of media and disciplines, from sculpture to video installation to dance – are Guy Ben-Ner, Justine A. Chambers and Tanya Lukin Linklater.
TODD SCHULZ: BEFORE THE SUN GOES DOWN
Vernon Public Art Gallery, Vernon. To Jul 13
Self-taught Vernon artist Todd Schulz uses hard-edge abstraction to explore and express concepts of the transcendent and free himself from “the burdens of modernity.” His new series of radiantly hued paintings are intended to evoke the serene period when the sun descends below the western horizon. “Often regarded as a magical time of day,” the exhibition statement says, “it’s when colour and light appear to be most luminous and vibrant.”
qaɁ yəxw – water honours us: womxn and waterways
Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art, Vancouver. To Oct 2
Curated by members of the ReMatriate Collective, qaɁ yəxw brings together works by nine emerging artists who identify as female and Indigenous. While the core theme is the profound relationship between Indigenous women and water, artworks range widely, from portrait photographs, beaded paintings and jewelry to masks, drums and woodblock prints. Artists allude to conditions past and present, citing cultural traditions while also innovating with style and materials – and the effect is powerful.
BLANKETING: JESSE CAMPBELL
Open Space Arts Society, Victoria. To Dec 14
Métis / Cree artist Jesse Campbell has painted a brilliantly hued mural in the entranceway and inner stairwell leading to Open Space’s second-fl oor gallery. Based on a traditional blanket pattern, it alludes to the artist’s ancestral culture while also honouring the gallery’s programming and his involvement in it. Campbell, an acclaimed mural painter based in Victoria, was one of the original participants in the Indigenous Youth Artist Showcase at Open Space in 2013.
LETA HEIBERG: FLOOD (RE)VIEWS
Gallery 2 – Grand Forks Art Gallery, Grand Forks. Jun 8 – Aug 17
One of three concurrent exhibitions relating to the rivers of the BC Interior, Leta Heiberg’s series of mixed-media drawings represent her response to last year’s catastrophic flooding of the Kettle River. Based on aerial footage from the time, her expressionistic images convey the unstoppable power of water flowing from the mountain snowpack. In her depictions of the fl ood’s devastation and aftermath, Heiberg asks her audience to deeply process the meaning of what may be the new normal.
SANG HEE KIM: ORIENTAL PAINTINGS & MINHWA
Silk Purse Arts Centre, West Vancouver. Jun 18 – Jul 7
This solo exhibition introduces viewers to minhwa, as interpreted by Korean-Canadian artist Sang Hee Kim. A long-standing Korean folk art tradition, minhwa employs images of objects and animals symbolically. Mountain peonies may symbolize wealth, honour and beauty; a turtle may signify longevity; and a magpie together with a tiger can be a harbinger of good news. Kim’s belief is that these images reveal values, longings and aspirations common to both Eastern and Western cultures.
WOMEN’S WORK: NEW ACQUISITIONS
Burnaby Art Gallery, Burnaby. Jun 21 – Aug 25.
Sometimes the playing fi eld needs more than levelling; sometimes it needs to be plowed up and completely reseeded. The BAG’s summer show features new acquisitions of work created by women artists as part of a targeted collections practice to redress the previous gender inequity in the gallery’s permanent collection. Among the many historic and contemporary artists represented here are Diyan Achjadi, Shuvinai Ashoona, Kate Craig, Carole Itter, Agnes Martin, Marianna Schmidt and Tania Willard.
SURROUNDED: SKEENA REECE
Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver. Jun 28 – Aug 11
This spring, acclaimed installation and performance artist Skeena Reece invited specific people into the gallery to be wrapped in an adult-sized cradleboard she created in 2017. The exhibition includes photo and video documentation of these events, along with the moss bag itself. “The bag is a place to rest for a moment, evoking a feeling of longing, not a feeling of loss,” says the Tsimshian / Gitksan and Cree artist. “Being wrapped gives a calming feeling that elicits hope for the future, and is a way to hold people up.”
40TH ANNIVERSARY EXHIBITION
Inuit Gallery of Vancouver, Vancouver. Jul 6 – Aug 23
Celebrating the Inuit Gallery’s journey since its inception in 1979, this show spotlights work across time and place by Inuit and Northwest Coast First Nations artists. Represented here are both first-generation Inuit carvers such as Kananginak Pootoogook and John Pangnark and contemporary Inuit artists such as Nuna Parr and Toonoo Sharky. Also on view are works by senior Northwest Coast artists such as Art Thompson, Susan Point and Simon Dick and the younger artists they have mentored.