2019 exhibitions

January 25 to March 27, 2019
Opening: Thursday, February 7, 5:30 to 7:30 pm
Artist talk: Friday, February 8, 12:30 pm

Catalogue excerpt

Building on her previous multi-media installation, The Stars Are Dead but Their Light Lives On, this exhibition crystallizes the artist’s practice of exploring existing materials, images, and technologies in search of new meanings. In the case of Mormorii, Annis creates a charged encounter by remediating an archive that is fundamentally immaterial in nature. The artist activates the viewers’ senses in such a way that, when standing in the center of the installation, “the whole body begins to vibrate, accompanied by a slight shiver.”** The re-presentation of matter as intimate as lullabies into an amplified multi-channel environment is far from being a cold display of technological disembodiment. Rather, it constitutes a radical transformation of transmission that touches a powerful chord. Immersed in a field of lullabies, the installation is a strange and deeply moving experience that evokes presence through absence, a thousand times whispered.

- Véronique La Perrière M.

**As Bernard Lamarche describes in his review of Mormorii : « À activer nos sens de la sorte, et considéré la charge émotive des chants entendus, c’est tout le corps qui se met à vibrer au sein de cette installation, traversé par un doux frisson. » See: Lamarche, Bernard. Fiona Annis. De l’oralité à l’auralité. Espace art actuel, 2018.

Biography          

Fiona Annis lives and works in Montreal, Canada. Her practice includes a wide range of media to explore tensions between concept and material and to select the processes and rhythms that amplify the ideas underpinning each of her projects. Fiona has exhibited in museums, artist-run centres and university galleries across Canada and internationally. Her artwork is featured in the permanent collection of the Museum of Civilization in Quebec City, the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, the City of Ottawa Art Collection, and the Penumbra Foundation in New York City. Fiona continues an ongoing collaboration with The Society of Affective Archives, with projects that include a large-scale public art commission in the City of Montreal. Fiona is currently the recipient of a fellowship from the Brucebo Foundation to begin a new project at the Observatory and Museum of Astronomical Instruments in Naples, Italy.

March 28 to May 20, 2019
Opening: Thursday, March 28, 5:30 to 7:30 pm
Artist tour: Sunday, April 28 at 2 pm

The digital photographs in this exhibition are multiple exposures of the freezing rainfall on April 16, 2018 and of dying local milkweed. They signal a catastrophic reduction of 90% in the Monarch butterfly population of Eastern North America. This intimate interrelationship between living plant and insect with the untimely freezing rain evokes a slow, shared death resonating with both grief and the memory of hope.

Catalogue excerpt

Will this be the death of the monarch?

Lilly’s practice provides an answer. Each image is created by superimposing up to seven different images. Some of these are translucent, while others almost opaque; some are shot with radical camera movement, while others are captured in sharp focus. In the end, she evokes the possibility of life and survival with a great deal of skill, depth and internal light.

- Judith Eglington

Biography          

Born in Toronto, L. KOLTUN is an interdisciplinary artist who reveals new meanings through defamiliarization. She seeks to create unsettling works inspired by a fascination with deep-rooted societal behaviours and with suppressed, disputed or disregarded values. Following a distinguished career as a cultural executive and Canadian photography scholar, she completed a BFA at the University of Ottawa in 2014, winning two awards. She has completed sculptural and painting commissions and has exhibited still and moving imagery, as well as installation and performance works, in Ottawa and several other Canadian cities. She sits on the Board of Directors of the Ottawa Art Gallery while continuing as a longstanding Adjunct Research Professor in Art History at Carleton University. She is currently completing an MFA at the University of Ottawa.

Curator: Jakub Zdebik

May 30 to July 28, 2019
Opening: Thursday, May 30, 5:30 to 7:30 pm
Curator’s talk: Sunday, July 7, 2 pm

Catalogue excerpt

Abstract Networks explores the emergence of a modernist formalist aesthetics in contemporary culture through the art of Luce Meunier, Sarah Rooney, and Monica Tap. These three artists capture multiple facets of the modernist style: geometry, abstract landscape and an engagement with reproducibility. The works in the exhibition create networks of association and meaning through painted representation, photography as painting, abstract photographic strategies and landscapes dissolving into abstraction. All these variations on representation are connected through an engagement with digital technology.

- Jakub Zdebik

Biographies

Luce Meunier uses a bare minimum of visual and graphic language to create her works. The artist is concerned with original application processes, and finds non-classical methods to apply her subject. Formed by prominent folds, superimpositions and illusions of transparency, her pictorial compositions explore space and highlight organizational structures in a formal organic geometry. Luce Meunier lives and works in Montreal. Her work has recently been presented at Antoine Ertaskiran Gallery (Montreal), Galerie R³ de l’UQTR (Trois-Rivières), Christie Contemporary Gallery (Toronto), Dunlop Art Gallery (Regina), and Birch Libralato Gallery (Toronto). She was a finalist in the RBC Canadian Painting Competition in 2006. Her works can be found in many private, corporate, and institutional collections. The artist is represented by Antoine Ertaskiran Gallery.

Sarah Rooney makes paintings and photographs through a process of the layering of registers. She seeks to become witness to subtle spatial conundrums, and her works present reflections on shifts in distance, immediacy, and time. A Montreal-based artist, she was born in South Africa and spent her formative years in Brazil. Rooney studied at the Chelsea College of Art and Design in London, England, before obtaining a BFA from Concordia University in Montreal and an MFA from York University in Toronto. She has taught at York University, the University of Toronto, and she is currently a part-time professor in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Ottawa. Rooney’s paintings are included in the Canada Council Art Bank Collection, as well as in private collections in Canada, the United States, Mexico and Europe.

Monica Tap’s many artistic activities involve exploring questions of time and representation in painting. Her practice opens up a space between landscape and abstraction, and navigates the terrain between painting and other media. Her canvases are conceptual and systematic investigations into the codes of pictorial illusionism and perception. Over the past fifteen years, her work has been exhibited in Canada, New York and London, England. She has received many grants and awards, including one from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for her project, “Translation as a Strategy of Renewal in Painting.” She is a professor in the School of Fine Arts and Music at the University of Guelph.

Jakub Zdebik is an assistant professor of Art History in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Ottawa. His work has been published in RACAR, The Brock Review, The Semiotic Review of Books, English Studies in Canada and Deleuze Studies. He has released two books: Deleuze and the Diagram: Aesthetic Threads in Visual Organization (Continuum Press, 2012) and Deleuze and the Map-Image: Aesthetics, Information, Code and Digital Art came out in May (Bloomsbury Press, 2019). He has also curated art exhibitions at the Kennedy Museum of Art in Ohio and Gallery R³ in Trois-Rivières, Quebec.

University of Ottawa MFA candidate – Thesis exhibition

August 14 to September 8, 2019
Opening: Thursday, August 22, 5:30 to 7:30 pm

The gallery will be closed during the following times:

Thursday, August 15, 10:00 am to 1:00 pm
Friday, August 16. 9:00 am to 1:00 pm

We apologize for the inconvenience.

As a supplement to our regular programming, Karsh-Masson Gallery is pleased to partner with the University of Ottawa’s Department of Visual Arts to provide a valuable mentorship and professional development opportunity.

Artist statement excerpt

Esther Hoflick uses her practice to explore re-enchantment and what it means, on a phenomenological level, to be human. Her artistic investigations throughout her MFA have focused on perception and her relationship to the physical world. Her interest in perception is related also to her interest in the relationship between nonsense and meaning. Significantly, for the artist, these relationships are seen as a continuum, as opposed to a bifurcation. She wonders about our perceptions as enmeshed within our environment and where, on that continuum, meaning resides.

Biography

Moving from a cottage community just outside of Peterborough, Ontario, Esther Hoflick completed her B.A. Honours in Studio Arts from the University of Guelph in 2007, with a minor in English Literature. In 2012, the artist moved to Montreal where she lived and worked until she started her Master of Fine Arts degree, at the University of Ottawa, in 2017.

Hoflick was the co-founder of Night Owl Contemporary, a gallery for emerging artists in Montreal, and ran The Living Art Room, a small community-based art school. She worked as curator for Artbomb, a daily auction of Canadian art, and received a grant from the Québec Jeunes volontaires program, in 2014. She has worked as a studio assistant for Peter Barron, in Peterborough, Don Russell, in Guelph, and John Brown, in Toronto. Her work has been exhibited at Artspace, in Peterborough, the Art Gallery of Guelph, Espace Projet, in Montreal, Galerie UQO, in Gatineau, QC, and Artfetch, in Dublin, Ireland, among others.

November 22, 2019 to January 12, 2020

Signal: 2019 Additions to the City of Ottawa Art Collection showcases momentous commissions alongside substantial acquisitions from donations and purchase. A signal is a basic but important communication tool that carries timely messages and can be subtle or overt. The artists featured in this exhibition convey information to us, the viewer, through their gestures, actions, expressions and imagery. Observable changes in the environment, the city and the places we inhabit are presented as cues, if we are open to receiving them.

The artworks presented in Karsh-Masson Gallery were either acquired through donation to the City of Ottawa Art Collection or as site-specific commissions that were managed by the Public Art Program. Donations to the City of Ottawa Art Collection are considered on a case-by-case basis and offer the opportunity to collect works that fill specific gaps in this non-curated collection, which is focused on capturing Ottawa’s visual art history. In 2019, we welcomed 35 donations from artists and estates, including a significant donation of works by the late artist Mathieu Trudel (1979–2016).

The palpable momentum toward the launch of the O-Train Confederation Line in 2019 reminded us that our region is changing. Thirteen stations now connect our city from east to west, each of which features original artworks by nationally recognized artists from all over the country. These site-specific commissions offer transit users the opportunity to be exposed to a wide variety of large-scale artworks on their daily commute.

Artworks from this circulating collection are placed in over 170 public spaces and municipal buildings to be viewed and enjoyed by residents and visitors. The City of Ottawa and its various municipal predecessors have been actively collecting artwork by professional artists for over 30 years. As a result, the City of Ottawa Collection has grown to include more than 2,900 artworks by more than 800 artists. The artists featured in this exhibition are but a small fragment of a much larger visual arts community that comprises an abundance of artistic talent in the region.

List of recent additions to the City of Ottawa Art Collection

Purchase 

Annie Pootoogook, Late Night Snack, n.d., coloured pencil and ink on paper, 22 x 28 cm, 2019-0001

Gordon Stranks, unknown, c. 1940, watercolour on paper, 46 x 60 cm, 2019-0002

Adam Alorut, Spirit, 2018, whalebone, antler, ivory and stone, 64 x 31 x 13 cm, 2019-0009

Judith Berry, The Lives We’re Making, 2018, oil on wood panel, 68 x 168 cm, 2019-0010

Natalie Bruvels, Hopping Croakers, 2016, oil on canvas, 183 cm x 244 cm, 2019-0011

Kyle Bustin, Hive Mind, 2015, acrylic and spray paint on panel, variable dimensions, 2019-0012

Kristina Corre, On and On and…, 2018, mixed media on paper, 61 x 46 cm, 2019-0013

Laurence Finet, Mane-Crinière, 2018, cyanotype on paper, 22 x 32 cm, 2019-0014

Tony Fouhse, Untitled (snow), 2017, digital print on paper, 34 x 51 cm, 2019-0015

Gary Franks, Meredith and Hollis, 2018, digital print on paper, 33 x 41 cm, 2019-0016

Gary Franks, Self-Portrait, 2018, digital print on paper, 33 x 41 cm, 2019-0017

Gary Franks, Pippa, 2018, digital print on paper, 33 x 58 cm, 2019-0018

Daniel Effah, Blend Mask, 2018, digital print on paper, 41 x 51 cm, 2019-0019

Anna Frlan, Jet Clean, 2017, steel, 94 x 66 x 61 cm, 2019-0020

Marisa Gallemit, Vulcanized 1, 2018, bicycle tubes and pandanus leaves, 27 x 64 x 8 cm, 2019-0021

Marisa Gallemit, Vulcanized 2, 2018, bicycle tubes and pandanus leaves, 18 x 64 x 10 cm, 2019-0022

Marisa Gallemit, Vulcanized 4, 2018, bicycle tubes and pandanus leaves, 18 x 58 x 10 cm 2019-0023

Adrian Göllner, All the Birds I Saw Last Year: May 2018, 2018, digital print on paper, 92 x 29 cm, 2019-0024

Abigail Gossage, Barrymore’s Music Hall, 2019, digital print on paper, 71 x 102 cm, 2019-0025

Abigail Gossage, Somerset House, 2019, digital print on paper, 71 x 102 cm, 2019-0026

Nathalie Grice, Raccoon Kit, 2014, mixed media, 33 x 20 x 24 cm, 2019-0027

Nathalie Grice, Raccoon, 2014, mixed media, 56 x 41 x 31 cm, 2019-0028

Michael Harrington, Three Figures, 2019, gouache on paper, 23 x 30 cm, 2019-0029

Clara Kim, Frog & Rooster No. 3, 2018, acrylic on canvas, 61 x 91 cm, 2019-0030

Donald Kwan, Invisible Identities (Vest), 2019, mixed media, 66 x 46 x 5 cm, 2019-0031

Charlynne Lafontaine, No More Tears, 2018, glass and found object, 34 x 22 x 15 cm, 2019-0032

David Lidbetter, Spring Flood, 2018, oil on canvas, 76 x 102 cm, 2019-0033

Jim Logan, He Stole Three Boxes of Kraft Dinner, 2018, acrylic on canvas, 61 x 76 cm, 2019-0034

Blazej Marczak, Ice Blasting, 2018, digital print on paper, 112 x 161 cm, 2019-0035

Meryl McMaster, Caitlin, 2010, digital print on paper, 91 x 91 cm, 2019-0037

Maria Moldovan, Keeping It, 2018, porcelain, 33 x 28 x 13 cm, 2019-0037

Maria Moldovan, Carrier, 2018, porcelain and painted wood, 43 x 38 x 15 cm, 2019-0038

Caroline Monnet, Caroline, 2019, digital print on paper, 61 x 61 cm, 2019-0039

Paula Murray, Passage II, 2017, porcelain, 52 x 10 x 12 cm, 2019-0040

Mélanie Myers, Sans-titre (laitues défraîchies), 2019, colour pencil on paper, 158 x 152 cm, 2019-0041

Nadia Myre, Respite 03, 2017, digital print and plexiglas, 122 x 122 cm, 2019-0042

Rajeev Nath, Measuring Wheel, 2019, digital print on paper, 76 x 61 cm, 2019-0043

Rajeev Nath, Multi-Angle Palette Knife, 2019, digital print on paper, 76 x 61 cm, 2019-0044

Mat O’Hara, Casting a Line to Alain Brosseau, 2019, digital print on paper, 102 x 76 cm, 2019-0045

Cheryl Pagurek, Bodies of Water, 2013, digital video, 7 mins 22 sec, 2019-0046

Neeko Paluzzi, HIS/HIS, 2018, digital print on paper, 100 x 152 cm (each), 2019-0047

Bozica Radjenovic, Ne me quitte pas, 2017, linen and wax, 110 x 13 x 7 cm, 2019-0048

Mike Steinhauer, Vanier, 2019, digital print on paper, 132 x 66 cm, 2019-0049

Cindy Stelmackowich, Bleached Plasticity, 2019, digital print on paper, 84 x 112 cm, 2019-0050

Norman Takeuchi, Equilateral No. 9 (East Lillooet), 2018, acrylic on canvas, 122 x 91 cm, 2019-0051

Katherine Takpannie, Our Women and Girls are Sacred, 2018, digital print on paper, 61 x 91 cm, 2019-0052

Katherine Takpannie, Battling Addiction, 2018, digital print on paper, 61 x 91 cm, 2019-0053

Katherine Takpannie, Every Now and Then I Get a Feeling That I’ve Left Something Behind Me, 2018, digital print on paper, 61 x 91 cm, 2019-0054

Jeff Thomas, Terra Nullius, 2019, digital print on paper, 52 x 126 cm, 2019-0055

Sharon VanStarkenburg, It’s So Easy, 2016, oil on paper, 76 x 56 cm, 2019-0056

Colin White, Boushey’s (Façade), 2016, ink on paper, 28 x 36 cm, 2019-0057

Anna Williams, Déjeuner Sur L’Herbe, 2019, linocut on paper, 29 x 39 cm, 2019-0058

Shirley Yik, Anthrop-o-scene 1, 2016, ink on paper, 107 x 152 cm, 2019-0059

Jinny Yu, From Left to Right, 2017, oil on aluminum, 2019-0060

Kathryn Drysdale, Burnside #4, 1993, charcoal on paper, 76 x 56 cm, 2019-0061

2019 Direct Purchase Peer Assessment Committee members; Andrew Fay, Julie Hodgson, Melinda Mollineaux, Danielle Printup, Ramona Ramlochand

Donations 

Karl Ciesluk, Seed Pod A, 2015, granite and stone, 69 x 46 x 160 cm, 2018-0068

Karl Ciesluk, Seed Pod C, 2015, granite and stone, 46 x 92 x 132 cm, 2019-0109

Christos Pantieras, Stephana (Crowns), 2000, found objects, wax and oil paint, 66 x 33 cm, 2019-0003

Christos Pantieras, ALL THE BEST, 2015, ink on paper, 76 x 56 cm, 2019-0004

Christos Pantieras, Untitled 1, 2015, digital print on paper, 111 x 85 cm, 2019-0005

Christos Pantieras, Untitled 11, 2015, digital print on paper, 111 x 85 cm, 2019-0006

Christos Pantieras, Untitled 12, 2015, digital print on paper, 111 x 85 cm, 2019-0007

Bruce Garner, Untitled (Dialog Series), n.d., bronze, 76 x 50 x 13 cm, 2019-0008

Jeff Thomas, White Corn, 2019, digital print on paper, 52 x 136 cm, 2019-0062

Jeff Thomas, Turtle Island, 2019, digital print on paper, 51 x 106 cm, 2019-0063

Mathieu Trudel, Vieux-Hull, 2014, silkscreen on paper, 61 x 46 cm, 2019-0064

Mathieu Trudel, The Dirtbombs, 2005, silkscreen on paper, 43 x 28 cm, 2019-0065

Mathieu Trudel, Holly Golightly, 2004, silkscreen on paper, 43 x 28 cm, 2019-0066

Mathieu Trudel, Le Nombre, 2003, silkscreen on paper, 28 x 43 cm, 2019-0067

Mathieu Trudel, L’allumière Canada Limited, 2014, digital print on paper, 31 x 46 cm, 2019-0068

Mathieu Trudel, Louis’ Pizza, 2015, digital print on paper, 31 x 46 cm, 2019-0069

Mathieu Trudel, Shanghai Restaurant, 2014, digital print on paper, 31 x 46 cm, 2019-0070

Mathieu Trudel, Bobby’s Table, 2015, digital print on paper, 31 x 46 cm, 2019-0071

Mathieu Trudel, Épicerie Claire Lepage, 2014, digital print on paper, 31 x 46 cm, 2019-0072

Mathieu Trudel, Vanier, 2015, digital print on paper, 31 x 46 cm, 2019-0073

Mathieu Trudel, Salon de Barbier Mantha, Majeau, 2014, digital print on paper, 46 x 31 cm, 2019-0074

Mathieu Trudel, Bar Jaguar, 2016, digital print on paper, 31 x 46 cm, 2019-0075

Mathieu Trudel, Dumouchel, 2015, digital print on paper, 31 x 46 cm, 2019-0076

Mathieu Trudel, Houle Sports, 2015, digital print on paper, 31 x 46 cm, 2019-0077

Mathieu Trudel, Steinbergs, 2015, digital print on paper, 31 x 46 cm, 2019-0078

Mathieu Trudel, Raw Sugar, 2014, digital print on paper, 46 x 31 cm, 2019-0079

Mathieu Trudel, Chez Taffy, 2015, digital print on paper, 31 x 46 cm, 2019-0080

Mathieu Trudel, Vive le vélo libre (Dec. 4, 2015), 2015, mixed media on cardboard, 31 x 46 cm, 2019-0081

Mathieu Trudel, Idle Hand, 2014, watercolour on paper, 61 x 46 cm, 2019-0082

Mathieu Trudel, Sans titre (July 8, 2015), 2015, ink and graphite on paper, 23 x 32 cm, 2019-0083

Mathieu Trudel, Mellos (November 3, 2015), 2015, ink and graphite on paper, 23 x 32 cm, 2019-0084

Mathieu Trudel, Maxwells (June 22, 2015), 2015, ink and graphite on paper, 23 x 32 cm, 2019-0085

Mathieu Trudel, Butler Motor Hotel, 2015, digital print on paper, 31 x 46 cm, 2019-0086

Mathieu Trudel, Épicerie, 2014, digital print on paper, 23 x 32 cm, 2019-0087

Mathieu Trudel, Patate Doré, n.d., digital print on paper, 31 x 46 cm, 2019-0088

2019 Donation Review Committee; Neven Lochhead, Annie Thibault, Melanie Yugo

Commissions 

Brandon Vickerd, Dwell, 2018, weathering steel, 2018-0067, commissioned for Greenbank Road Widening

Jill Anholt, Coordinated Movement, 2018, painted aluminum, 2019-0089, commissioned for O-Train Confederation Line Hurdman Station 

Derek Besant, Train of Thought, 2018, lenticular images, 2019-0090, commissioned for O-Train Confederation Line uOttawa Station

Simon Brascoupé, Algonquin Moose, 2018, painted steel, 2019-0091, commissioned for O-Train Confederation Line Pimisi Station

Simon Brascoupé (Lead Artist), Emily Brascoupé-Hoefler, Doreen Stevens, Sylvia Tennisco, Sherry-Ann Rodgers, Algonquin Canoe, 2018, acrylic paint, pine paddles and steel canoe / peinture acrylique, pagaies en pin et canoë en acier, 2019-0092, commissioned for O-Train Confederation Line Pimisi Station 

Simon Brascoupé, Claire Brascoupé and Mairi Brascoupé, Algonquin Birch Bark Biting Window Art, 2018, window film, 2019-0093, commissioned for O-Train Confederation Line Pimisi Station 

Geneviève Cadieux, FLOW / FLOTS, 2019, ceramic frit on glass, 2019-0094, commissioned for O-Train Confederation Line Rideau Station 

Douglas Coupland, Lone Pine Sunset, 2019, powder coated steel, 2019-0095, commissioned for O-Train Confederation Line Parliament Station 

Kenneth Emig, Sphere Field, 2019, mixed media, 2019-0096, commissioned for O-Train Confederation Line uOttawa Station 

cj fleury and Catherine Widgery, Lightscape, 2019, dichroic glass and stainless steel, 2019-0097, commissioned for O-Train Confederation Line Blair Station

Adrian Göllner, As the Crow Flies, 2018, weathering steel, 2019-0098, commissioned for O-Train Confederation Line Bayview Station 

Jyhling Lee, National Garden, 2019, mirrored finished stainless steel, 2019-0099, commissioned for O-Train Confederation Line Tremblay Station 

Don Maynard, Stand of Birch, 2018, stainless steel, 2019-0100, commissioned for O-Train Confederation Line Cyrville Station 

Geoff McFetridge, This Image Relies on Positive Thinking, 2019, paint on concrete, 2019-0101, commissioned for O-Train Confederation Line Lyon Station 

Nadia Myre, untitled (Pimisi/Eel; woven basket; birch forest fence), 2018, mixed media, 2019-0102, commissioned for O-Train Confederation Line Pimisi Station 

PLANT, With Words as their Actions, 2019, stainless steel, 2019-0103, commissioned for O-Train Confederation Line Lyon Station

Pierre Poussin, Cascades, 2019, painted aluminum, 2019-0104, commissioned for O-Train Confederation Line Bayview Station 

Derek Root, Gradient Space, 2019, coloured glass and glass tile, 2019-0105, commissioned for O-Train Confederation Line Tunney’s Pasture Station 

Jennifer Stead, Trails: home and away, 2019, powder coated steel, 2019-0106, commissioned for O-Train Confederation Line Parliament Station 

Amy Thompson, Transparent Passage, 2019, powder coated aluminum and ink on glass, 2019-0107, commissioned for O-Train Confederation Line Lees Station 

Jim Verburg, The shape this takes to get to that, 2017, porcelain and stainless steel, 2019-0108, commissioned for O-Train Confederation Line Rideau Station 

Andrew Morrow, untitled, 2019, digital print on vinyl, 2019-0109, commissioned for O-Train Confederation Line St-Laurent Station