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The Tom Thomson Art Gallery is thrilled to open three new exhibitions on Saturday, Feb. 4, with an opening reception from 12:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m.
Extended gallery hours will also begin Tuesday, Feb. 7.
Beginning February 7, the Gallery will be open Tuesday through Friday, 12:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., Saturdays from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and 12:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. on the first Wednesday of each month (starting in March).
The Gallery is open by appointment for tours and programs Tuesday through Friday, from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Admission continues to be by donation and free with the OPEN Card.
How is your Fire? – February 4 – May 27
Artist talk: Saturday, February 4, 11 a.m. – 12 p.m. – free to attend
How is your fire? is the English translation of an Indigenous greeting. The question is an intimate one that seeks introspection about the fire burning within us while also alluding to broader questions surrounding our collective relationship with fire.
Each of the artists featured in this exhibition; Lisa Hirmer, Emelie Robertson, Don Russell, and Peter Schuler, approach this question through their individual practices, repositioning fire as a regenerative and transformational force that connects us with each other and our environment through its profound physical and spiritual power.
Growth Rings – Part Two – continuing to June 3, 2023
In Canadian forest ecologist Suzanne Simard’s memoir Finding the Mother Tree, she describes how scientific analysis reinforces what has been felt by those who have stood in the undergrowth of a forest and felt an immense sense of connection—that “the forest is wired for wisdom, sentience, and healing.”
Simard describes how trees are complex, interconnected, social, and cooperative creatures that can perceive and learn from one another, adapt behaviours, recognize neighbouring trees, and hold memories. The fact that these traits parallel and are interwoven with human systems of behaviour, connection, and spirituality, has compelled artists year after year to focus on trees as the subject of their work.
Growth Rings is a two-part series that places Tom Thomson’s woodland sketches in conversation with a cross-section of works by his contemporaries and artists of subsequent generations, revealing how conceptions of nature are heavily rooted in historical, cultural, and personal worldviews.
Featuring: Tom Thomson, Jordan Blackburn, and works from the Collection.
So to Speak – February 4 - May 27
Featured artists from the collection: Stephen Andrews, April Hickox, Micah Lexier, Kris Rosar, and Dennis Torbin.
source: media release, City of Owen Sound
Image: Credit: Lisa Hirmer, borrowed matter is always in movement (toward new containers), 2022. Courtesy of the artist.
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