Larry Towell: Boundaries

Judith & Norman Alix Art Gallery

Visitors explore Larry Towell: Boundaries at the Judith & Norman Alix Art Gallery.

Larry Towell: Boundaries

Curated by Sonya Blazek
On view until March 21, 2026
Judith & Norman Alix Art Gallery, Sarnia

Boundaries spans four-decades of Larry Towell’s prolific career, revealing his emotionally charged and deeply humanist vision as a photographer. His work explores themes of land, landlessness, and control, ranging from a personal account of his family’s life in rural Ontario to the plight of civilians caught in the crossfire of war.

The exhibition highlights selections from Towell’s extensive photographic series, including: The Mennonites, which exposes the extreme poverty endured by the Canadian/Mexican Mennonite community as they struggle to resist modernity; The World From My Front Porch, which offers a personal account of Towell’s family life and home in Dawn-Euphemia Township; El Salvador and the award winning No Man’s Land which intimately examines the struggle for survival in the conflict zones of El Salvador and Palestine; Afghanistan, released in 2014; plus his most recent projects, The History War, which documents Ukraine’s long struggle for independence and Migrant which documents the astounding risks migrants take to cross the Mexican border into the United States.

A listening room complements the exhibition. As a talented poet and musician, Towell has produced hypnotic songs of resistance resulting in several music/poetry CDs and a recent collector’s three vinyl LP set of ballads focusing on international issues. The room features a selection of photo books showcasing his unique blend of personal notes, ephemera and photography that push the boundaries of storytelling.

Visitors explore Larry Towell: Boundaries at the Judith & Norman Alix Art Gallery.

About Larry Towell

Larry Towell (b. 1953) was raised in rural Lambton County. After studying visual arts at York University in Toronto (1972–1976) and volunteering in Calcutta (1976), he spent two years living in solitude on a homemade raft where he began to write. His photojournalist career began in the 1980s when he deployed to document the civilian victims of the Nicaraguan Contra War from which he would go on to be the only Canadian member of the prestigious Magnum Photos agency (1988.) Over the past four-decades Towell’s coverage of historic events, human rights, and conflict have appeared in leading publications that include New York Times Magazine, Life Magazine, Rolling Stone, Geo, Stern, Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, The Nation, and The New Yorker, and has resulted in the publication of 16 books.

Towell has exhibited internationally and his work is included in collections at the Getty Center, National Gallery of Canada, George Eastman Museum, National Museum of Qatar, and Archive of Modern Conflict in the UK.

International photography awards include: The Henri Cartier-Bresson Award (first recipient); several first place World Press awards including the 1994 Photo of the Year; a Hasselblad Award; The Alfred Eisenstadt; The Oskar Barnack; the first Roloff Beny Book prize, a Paul de Hueck and Norman Walford Career Achievement Award, the Prix Nadar of France, and a British Design and Art Direction (D&AD) Award. In 2020 he became a Guggenheim fellow.

Larry Towell

Also on View / Upcoming Exhibitions

Making Space: Recent Acquisitions
November 7, 2025 – July 12, 2026

Debwewe Giizhik | (sound in the distance) from the sky
John Williams
September 5, 2025 – May 31, 2026

TOGETHER APART | UNDER ONE ROOF
Aganetha Dyck | Reva Stone | Diana Thorneycroft
April 17 – August 29, 2026

About JNAAG

The Judith & Norman Alix Art Gallery is a free public art gallery located in downtown Sarnia, Ontario. With more than 250 members, over 1,200 works of Canadian art in the permanent collection, and with the support of a keen volunteer team, the gallery serves an immediate community of 128,000 people across Lambton County.

We approach our job with a regional responsibility and an appreciation for the national sensibility; responding to issues that matter in our immediate community within the broader context of the Canadian cultural economy. We offer a variety of historical and contemporary exhibitions that, as per our mandate, focus on visual art and visual culture by Canadian artists of national and regional calibre in a dynamic environment.

Our goal is to provide the community with an exciting range of art exhibitions, tours, lectures and art programs that inspire creativity and interest in the visual arts.

We acknowledge that this land on which we are gathered today is part of the ancestral land of the Chippewa, Odawa, and Potawatomi peoples, referred to collectively as the Anishinaabeg. It is through the connection of the Anishinaabeg with the spirit of the land, water and air that we recognize their unique cultures, traditions, and values. Together as treaty people, we have a shared responsibility to act with respect for the environment that sustains all life, protecting the future for those generations to come.

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