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Oshawa and Ajax presents a year-round mosaic of
activities and attractions for visitors and residents alike. The following art exhibits
are presented in various locations in Oshawa and Ajax.
The Robert McLaughlin Gallery is dedicated to the
collection, preservation and exhibition of the best in Canada's art heritage; the
collection includes an extensive selection of Canadian masterpieces. Since Painters
Eleven, Ontario's first abstract painting group, was founded in Oshawa/Whitby in 1953, the
Gallery has always taken a deep interest in the work of these outstanding artists, their
significant contemporaries and followers. There is, within the mandate, a specific
dedication to Painters Eleven and to concerns that arise naturally in the creative tension
between representational and non-representational art. In its programming, services and
resources the Gallery gives special attention to the practices and discourse centred in
non-representational art, and in their various developments from modernism to contemporary
post-structuralism, including new media and technology.
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 To June 13
Gerald Ferguson: Frottage Works, 1994-2006
Robert McLaughlin Gallery
Curated by Susan Gibson Garvey
Gerald Ferguson (January 29, 1937 – October 8, 2009) was a conceptual artist and
painter who lived and taught in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Born in Cincinnati he was both a
Canadian and US citizen. After receiving his MFA from Ohio University Ferguson taught at
two institutions before coming to Canada in 1968, invited to teach at Nova Scotia College
of Art and Design (NSCAD) in Halifax. He continued to teach at NSCAD until his retirement
in 2006.
During his time at NSCAD he developed his conceptual approach to painting, what the
Dalhousie Art Gallery curator Susan Gibson Garvey refers to as “literal,
task-oriented paintings." With NSCAD president Garry Neill Kennedy, Ferguson helped
establish NSCAD as an important centre for conceptual art, noted for his role in the idea
of "the dematerialization of the art object" in Lucy Lippard's influential
history of conceptualism Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to
1972.[] Critic Gary Michael Dault describes Ferguson's teaching at NSCAD as a
"37-year trajectory...wherein he stubbornly, persuasively tilled the fields of the
kind of conceptual art for which the college became primarily known." |
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 To June
27
Fear & Faith: Recent Sculpture by Shayne Dark & Dennis Gill
Robert McLaughlin Gallery
Guest Curated by Gil McElroy.
The work of sculptors Shayne Dark and Dennis Gill proffers aesthetic approaches to the
highly interrelated pairing of “fear” and “faith,” exploring the
recursive dynamics of the system they form, their closed loop of information that
endlesslyfeeds back upon itself and which can consequently become out of control and
closed off from reality barring the insertion of new, mediating information into the
cycle.
Kingston-area sculptor Shayne Dark has a long articulated an aesthetic that marries
abstraction with the use of natural forms. Many of his pieces directly employ the slender
trunks of the Ironwood trees that grow across his property which he colours with bright
primary pigments and then arranges into prickly geometrical forms and shapes like rings
and half-spheres that connote a powerful defensiveness, In his most recent work, he’s
pigmented cedar logs recovered from lake bottoms and arranged them in-situ into abstract,
self supporting sculptural structures that convey the riskiness often associated with the
work of an artist like Richard Serra, whose monumental steel sculptures are
self-supporting entities.
Mythology has always been a place where the interrelatedness of fear and faith has been
expressed, and Huntsville-area artist Dennis Gill has made a career exploring the
aesthetic implications of its findings. Snakes – creatures simultaneously a symbol of
wisdom and reverence (as in the caduceus of medicine, or the early Gnostic tradition of
Christianity that saw the snake in the Garden of Eden as a manifestation of the true God),
as well as fear and a harbinger of death – have figured prominently, in one form or
another, in his sculptural work. More recently, Gill’s Laocoön, two separate works
in which the snake has become contemporized as steel-clad high-voltage wiring, plugged
into an electrical outlet at one end, and, via a tight winding about a cluster of logs or
branches, exposes its teeth and poison – its naked and deadly wiring – to the
curious. Fear and faith, indeed. |
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 To August 26
Symphonious Realm: Celebrating the 90th Anniversary of the Group of Seven
Robert McLaughlin Gallery
Common perceptions about the art of the Group of Seven are based largely on their
paintings that portray the Canadian wilderness, offering only a limited idea of the
group’s other work such as their inspired portraits, prints, war art, and cartoons.
Symphonious Realm, produced in commemoration of the 90th anniversary of the Group of
Seven’s first exhibition, showcases a variety of artworks by all ten official group
members, many of which have rarely been exhibited before. Despite the diverse artistic
approaches and viewpoints taken by each member in depicting Canada, its people, and
history, the Group of Seven were brought together by their shared belief in the need for a
well-defined Canadian art. This nationalistic mentality emerged out of their experiences
with the First World War, which precipitated the desire for a distinct non-European
identity.
Symphonious Realm reunites the art of the Group of Seven with music by the Rheostatics, a
Canadian independent band. The exhibition features their album, Music Inspired by the
Group of Seven, originally commissioned by the National Gallery of Canada in 1995 to
accompany a retrospective exhibition honouring the Group of Seven’s 75th anniversary.
The pairing of visual and musical artists illustrates how Canadian culture is intricately
interwoven and creates a dialogue between the arts. A similar cross-pollination of
creative outlets was central to the formation of the Group of Seven who met at, and were
involved in, The Arts and Letters Club. During this time, the Club was a Toronto
association where artists, musicians, writers, architects, and those from other
professions came together to help build and invigorate an artistic culture for Canada.
With the medley of visual art and music, Symphonious Realm aims to honour this model and
help create art lovers out of music devotees and fans of the Rheostatics out of Group of
Seven followers.
Curated by Alyssia Nelson |
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 To September 19
Peter Sager: Rediscovered
Robert McLaughlin Gallery
Having held the youngest one man show in the history of the Vancouver Art Gallery, a young
Peter Sager displayed lino blocks and sculptures, depicting his originality as an artist
at the age of 17. Peter Sager eventually expanded his range and expressed his creativity
in many other forms. Sager is now internationally known for his sculptures, prints,
gouaches, drawings and water colors. |
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