From Dorset Seen:

Kananginak Pootoogook, Untitled 2010
Ink and coloured pencil on paper. Collection of Marnie Schreiber

Inscription: “Shooyoo taking a tea break while berry picking”

This work was made some fifty years after Kananginak and his wife Shooyoo settled in Cape Dorset and Kananginak started working with James Houston on the community’s first experiments in printmaking.

In the more than 2000 prints released by Kinngait Studios since 1959, images of daily life are conspicuously absent. Drawings by the community’s artists, however, tell a different story, and this is particularly true for Kananginak, who delighted in the everyday.

He has said: “To be able to draw a picture of myself, I think about the things that I have done or the things that I have had – a new accordion, or a new rifle. It allows me to remember what I have had in my life. I want my grandchildren, and the general public, to see what I have done, and what I remember of my life.”

Dorset Seen is on view at Carleton University Art Gallery until June 2.

6Dorset Seen, Kananginak Pootoogook, Current Exhibitions, medium,

Have you heard about our new Art Critic-in-Residence blog? This semester’s art critic, Carleton U. M.A. Art History student, Diane Pellicone, has just posted another review - this time about Deborah Margo’s show at Patrick Mikhail Gallery.

She writes about Margo’s knitted panels, which were inspired by a recent trip to Europe: “As one end of the panel falls gracefully from the spindle, the viewer wanders through an assortment of patterns and stitches, literally ascending the work with our eyes, as we later descend the mountainous slope.”

Check out the review! http://cuagartcritic.tumblr.com/post/47204151416/oh-what-a-web-we-weave

Image: Deborah Margo, Climbing Montjuic, 2010-2013  (foreground, suspended from ceiling), Italian Diamonds, 2010-2013  (background), courtesy of Tom Evans

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Collection Friday!

Leslie Reid, Continuity II, 1972. Silkscreen on paper. Gift of Leslie Reid, 1996.

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This weekend is packed with art-filled things to do in Ottawa, so take your pick!

On Friday night, head down to Old Ottawa South to Patrick Mikhail Gallery for the vernissage of Adrian Göllner’s solo show, Norwegian Wood. Göllner, a well-known Ottawa conceptual artist, uses pieces of analogue technology like record players and harmonographs to create fascinating drawings. Very intriguing.

Also on Friday is the Creative Mornings + Ottawa School of Art + School of Photographic Arts: Ottawa fundraiser ArtThrob. Proceeds go to scholarship funds for both OSA and SPA:O, plus you get to hang out with musical acts Zoo Legacy, NDMA and Silkken Laumann.

On Saturday Night, turn yourself into art at The Daily Grind with the ever popular Partyy. If you show up early, you can get your picture taken, framed, and hung on the wall for people to decorate!

On Sunday afternoon, Rosalie Favell’s new show opens at Cube Gallery in Westboro. Her photographic series incorporate family photographs, self-portraits and pop culture figures (including Xena, Warrior Princess - a personal favourite). Very powerful, very fun. Definitely check this show out. 

Monday evening is our last (sob!) edition of DOUBLE MAJOR. It’s been a really awesome experience putting on this “lecture” series, and I’ve loved every single one. I’m really looking forward to this one, which features Carleton U. Art History professor Ming Tiampo facing off against local DJ and media artist Bear Witness. Ming will be talking about her recent Gutai exhibition at the Guggenheim, while Bear will focus on Billy the NDN Scout from Predator. Not to be missed!

Have fun!

Image: Rosalie Favell “I Awoke to Find My Spirit Had Returned” from the series Plain(s) Warrior Artist, 1999. Giclee print on paper.

6Ottawa Art Scene, ottarts, art,

Opening tonight: Dorset Seen. Curated by Leslie Boyd and Sandra Dyck; Produced in collaboration with NAC’s Northern Scene.

As the critic Sarah Milroy wrote in a recent article on Tim Pitsiulak (The Walrus, July/August 2012), the artist is a crack shot - whether with a gun or camera. He takes many photographs on his hunting expeditions, images he and his fellow artists use as the basis for artworks.

Tim Pitsiulak (b. 1967) Launching Canoe on Floe Edge 2012. Graphite, coloured pencil and felt pen on paper. Collection of Dorset Fine Arts.

6Dorset Seen, Tim Pitsiulak, medium,

Opening tonight: Dawson Gold. Curated by Heather Anderson; Produced in collaboration with NAC’s Northern Scene.

Vestiges of gold mining haunt Valerie Salez’s 2008 Cold Covered Bones photographs. The Yukon-raised and periodic Dawson City resident deployed colourful afghan blankets she collected at the Dawson City Dump Free Store and thrift stores to cover abandoned gold mining equipment in these site-specific works in the landscape outside Dawson City.

Valerie Salez, Cold Covered Bones - Barge #1, 2008, printed 2013. Digital colour photograph, courtesy of the artist.

6Dawson Gold, Valerie Salez, medium,

Collection Friday!

Kenneth Lochhead, A Ripcord tie of sudden snow overruns the park at Easter…, 1961. Ink on paper.

Happy long weekend everyone!

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