Drawing Up a Storm

Drawing up a Storm presents single, wall-sized works by three Canadian artists; Simon Hughes (Winnipeg, Manitoba, b. 1973), Alison Norlen (Regina, Saskatchewan, b. 1962), and Rick Pottruff (Brantford, Ontario, b. 1945).  Apart from scale, a characteristic of their respective works is an expanded field of vision—multiple narratives with cinematic qualities, a collision of minutiae with the spectacle. Interwoven are elements of absurdity, humour, farce and tragedy, with a reportage eye towards contemporary life, current events, popular culture, and social contradictions.

As a complement and counterpoint, one wall is installed with more than 80 works from the Gallery’s collection, to create a visual map (and a “museum spectacle”)—what drawing does, what it says, and how the language continues to change and adapt to different ideas and expressions. This overview includes sketches and preparatory work, high realism to gestural, and conceptual and notational drawing.

Artists

Marcel Barbeau, Bruno Bobak, Claude Breeze, Helen Cleaves, Lindee Climo, Kathleen Daly, Stanley Cosgrove, Jean-Phillipe Dallaire, Marcel Dzama, Kingmeata Etidlooie, Lionel LeMoine FitzGerald, Carol Fraser, Marc Gallant, Sara Graham, Virgil Hammock, Lawren Harris, Robert Harris, William Critchlow Harris, Helen Hazard, Tom Hodgson, Simon Hughes, Gerald Humen, AY Jackson, Phyllis Jacobine Jones, Joseph Kashetsky, Ben Kinder, Peter Kolisnyk, Naomi London, Allan Harding MacKay, JW Morrice,  Norval Morrisseau, Jack Nichols, Alison Norlen, Nuna Parr, Rick Pottruff, Christopher Pratt, Mary Pratt,  Margaret Priest, Reinhard Reitzenstein, Kevin Rice, Gerald Roach, William Ronald, Fred Ross, David Samila, John Scott, E. Nancy Stevens, Lan Thu, Harold Town, Floyd Trainor, Horatio Walker, Marion Wagschal,  Esther Warkov, Homer Watson, Hilda Woolnough and  Robert  Young