By Audrey Wang, AGGV Volunteer
This past Spring, during a time when, typically, the outdoors is celebrated for the rejuvenation of life after winter, much of humanity spent it indoors, under government lockdown orders to shelter from the unseen enemy of COVID-19. Our homes became our refuge and safe place.
The varied land and seascapes around Victoria have provided inspiration to artists for hundreds of years. Can you identify where these locales are in the paintings, drawings and photographs below from the AGGV Collection?
By Duncan M. Ferguson, AGGV Exhibitions Preparator
Details in the emblematic portrait of Bibi La Purée will be visible for the first time in decades. Sophie Pemberton’s portrait of Bibi La Purée hasn’t been fit for exhibition in decades. There are few artworks that represent so much of an artist, but this one weaves a web of significance into one painting.
By Audrey Wang, AGGV Volunteer
The centenarian and beloved BC-based artist and philanthropist, Gordon Appelbe Smith, worked prolifically up until he turned 100. The AGGV is fortunate to have many of Smith’s artworks that document his West Coast aesthetic. This body of works also serves as a profound testament to the art movements of the 20th century in Western Canada.
By Marina DiMaio, AGGV Marketing Assistant
In our ongoing celebration of the AGGV’s striking ceramics collection, we searched high and low for some of our wildest ceramics. Get ready to discover some of the incredibly inventive ways the artists in our collection have reimagined and reinvigorated this essential, and innately transformable, material, of earth and water – taking us “back to the land”, through “the ills of the city”, and far off into the future!
At the Art Gallery, we have a flower count from our vast art collection. How many varieties can you name in the artworks in this article? Take our quiz and scroll down to the end for the answers!
When the print media became a preferred medium for many First Nations artists, the artists practicing in the Northwest Coast developed a distinctive aesthetic culture that grew over the past 60 years. This is what is generally termed Coast Salish art.
By Graham C. Braun and Jacob M. Engstrom, UVic Students
The authors are trench supervisors with the Eastern Boeotia Archaeological Project, UVic’s archaeological excavation at ancient Eleon in Boeotia, Greece and are currently engaged in a study of the AGGV’s lead votive figurines from the sanctuary of Artemis Orthia, near Sparta, in the region of Laconia, Greece.
With the recent opening of To Talk With Others, organized by the Yukon Arts Centre, the AGGV Collections team discusses the challenges and processes that go into a travelling exhibition.
Persimmon Blackbridge is an innovative Canadian artist, writer, and activist, who rocked Vancouver in the early 80’s with ground-breaking works exploring lesbian sexual politics, disability culture and mental health.