Abstraction in art is a visual language that uses line, colour, form and composition that are non-representational or independent to a certain degree of any reference to the world.
Category: Painting
Heart and Soul: New Works by Sandhu Singh
Sandhu Singh has been a long-time friend of the Art Rental and Sales Program at the AGGV, and this collaboration was celebrated at the opening of his exhibition at the Massey Sales Gallery in early April.
10 Things to Know About the Group of Seven
Widely considered to be some of the most important Canadian artists in the early 20th century, the Group was an organization of self-proclaimed modern artists, pioneers to a new Canadian art movement that rallied against the conservatism of the time.
Unformable Things: The Curator’s Tour
Emily Carr’s works compare and contrast with the works of David Milne, Lawren Harris, A.Y. Jackson, Vera Weatherbie and many others, giving the viewer a chance to come to terms with the meanings behind the paintings and the artists’ take on exploring the varied landscapes of Canada.
Artists In Our Collection: David Milne
David Milne is known for his precision in technique and composition, choosing simple, uncomplicated objects for his still-life works and carefully planning his landscapes to ensure a pure aestheticism.
I Fell In Love With Art When…
So many of us have great stories of falling in love with art. Within those happy stories are also stories of not feeling good enough, of facing insecurities and fears and doing the inner work in order to be their best creative self. It’s so amazing to share these stories. I believe that we grow through sharing our stories. We have much more in common with each other than we had realized! – Karen Cooper, AGGV Art Rental & Sales Consultant
What’s to Love on Fabulous Fort?
Fort Street might just be our new favourite street, and we are attached to it in more ways than meets Moss (ha!). If you missed the joke, Fort Street runs perpendicular to the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria’s physical address, 1040 Moss Street. It has been the entrance to the annual TD Art Gallery Paint-In […]
From Portraits to Selfies
Featured image: Sophie Pemberton (Canadian, 1869-1959) | Colonel Schletter | 1910 | Oil on panel | Gift of Miss Angela Beanlands The “selfie” is a social phenomenon made popular by social media platforms such as Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram, helped along by the front-facing camera, a concept introduced by Sony Ericsson in 2003. Selfies, while […]
Say What? Art Terms for Beginners, Part 4
1. Allover Composition An allover picture refers to a two-dimensional work that lacks a dominant focal point and where the canvas is covered entirely with a composition that is treated uniformly. The term “allover picture” was first used by art critic Clement Greenberg in his 1948 essay “The Crisis of the Easel Picture”, in reference to “decentralized” […]
Exploring Nuu-chah-nulth Lands
The exhibition Point of Contact: On Place and the Westcoast Imaginary centers on a pertinent part of Vancouver Island’s modern history, the story of Captain James Cook’s arrival in 1778 and his role in opening up trade at a place the colonists named Nootka. On a more personal level, the exhibition was put together by the AGGV’s […]
Art & Geometry in the AGGV
Beyond the Edges, which opened in October, shines the spotlight on the order and purity of geometric lines and the media employed to produce them. This exhibition not only re-interprets the theories espoused by American art critic Clement Greenberg (1909-1994), but it questions dominant modernist art theories about abstraction, and in particular, geometric abstraction. By […]
Point of Contact: On Place and the West Coast Imaginary
I hope the viewer will leave the exhibition with an understanding of how the idea of place is subjective and culturally constructed; and to consider the role that artists have played in shaping and informing these attitudes. The exhibition looks at Nootka as a case study and traces an arc of more than 200 years. […]
A Fruitful Life: Symbolism in Art
In Christian iconography, the apple symbolizes Original Sin, the fall of man and temptation. In Chinese culture, the word for apple, “ping guo”, is a homophone for the word “ping”, meaning peace or tranquility, so an apple symbolizes a wish for peace. Apples also feature prominently in Greek myths. Fruits and vegetables are depicted in […]
Say What? Art Terms For Beginners, Part 2
Conceptual Art The term ‘concept art’ came into use in the early 1960s and became defined as an art movement around the late 60s. Conceptual art is a transformative art form whereby the idea (or concept) behind the work takes precedence over the actual finished artwork itself. By challenging art as an individual expression, conceptual […]