The MacLaren Art Centre Presents 2023 Winter Exhibitions

Opening Celebration: February 17 / 6:30 pm– 8:30pm

Frederick Hagan, Fragment of a Legend, 1965, stone lithograph on paper, 26″ x 19″. Ted Fullerton, Nietzsche and Me, 2016, stone lithograph on paper, 30″ x 22″.

Mentor and Me
The Stone Lithographs of Frederick Hagan & Ted Fullerton

February 17 – May 21, 2023

Mentor & Me is a celebration of a student-teacher relationship that developed into a lifelong friendship rooted in a shared commitment to stone lithography, the breadth of visual expression, and a deep mutual respect. Frederick Hagan was an instrumental figure in the development of the printmaking program at the Ontario College of Art during his 37-year tenure as an instructor, inspiring hundreds of Canadian artists and printmakers – including Ted Fullerton. In 1972, Fullerton arrived in Hagan’s printmaking class and was immediately captivated by the medium and Hagan’s unique insights and teachings.

Bringing together the stone lithographs of Hagan and Fullerton has accentuated the interconnections between their works, while pointing to a broader network of mentorship and influence that has shaped their careers and has been carried forward through their contributions to Canadian printmaking. Though the exhibition celebrates this important pairing, it equally asks us to consider stone lithography as a medium and to reflect on the broad importance of mentorship, influence, and the many ways in which everything that we do is indebted to the people and contexts that surround us.

Ted Fullerton is a Canadian artist who works in painting, drawing, printmaking, and sculpture and has achieved awards in all four media. His work is exhibited nationally and internationally and is represented in numerous private and public collections. He has been awarded a number of public sculpture commissions across Ontario and has participated in over 65 solo exhibitions and 110 group exhibitions. Recently, Fullerton was invited by the European Cultural Centre to exhibit during the 2022 Venice Biennale.

Frederick Hagan (1918-2003) was a lithographer, painter, watercolourist, draftsman, and art educator who inspired many generations of Canadian artists. Working in a moment where abstraction was gaining increasing popularity, Hagan remained committed to figuration. In 1967, Hagan was awarded the Canadian Centennial Medial and in 1988 the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts Medal. His work is held in many public collections, including the Art Gallery of Ontario, the National Gallery of Canada, and the Royal Ontario Museum.

My Grandmothers Dress, circa. 1955.

Angela Aujla: My Grandmothers Dress

February 17 – May 21, 2023

My Grandmother’s Dress tells the story of early diasporic Panjabi women making and remaking culture in Canada in the shadow of racist hostility, dislocation from homelands, and patriarchal traditions. Through engagement with material culture, archival documents, and family photographs, Aujla creates a visual discourse that disrupts colonial narratives and reanimates the lives of those excluded from dominant histories. Her work is an entanglement of historical, fictive, and autobiographical memory that encourages us to reposition our understanding of national history, and consider how traces of the past endure through generations.

Angela Aujla is a Punjabi Canadian visual artist who engages with archival materials and cultural objects to explore the interplay between culture, memory and colonial history. Her vibrant, narrative artwork takes the form of embellished photography, collage, drawing, and mixed media installations. She is fascinated with the ways that material objects come to carry meaning, memory, and nostalgia – particularly in diasporic, post-colonial contexts.

In the Heart of a Wood, (detail).

Julia White: In the Heart of a Wood

February 17 – June 4, 2023

In the Heart of a Wood is an invitation to enter the archetypal forest, where tree-like columns serve as beacons of light and hope along an invisible path. A woodland soundscape beckons us into its wild mystery; water flows in a creek never-endingly, a cicada sings on a summer day. ‘Sit quietly and listen deeply’, the living mind of nature encourages in its own unique language deeper than words. Steeped in the steady quietude at the root of being, In the Heart of a Wood provides a potent point of connection to the wild currents within ourselves and our world.

Julia White is a sculptor that creates dreamlike sculptural landscapes with her enigmatic abstract forms. Originally from Toronto, White received a BFA from Queen’s University, Kingston and a certificate from the Deep Listening Institute, NY then followed her roots to a round house in the country near Walter’s Falls, ON, where she now lives on land with a creek and a forest of trees.

For more information on our current and upcoming exhibitions, events and programs, please visit www.maclarenart.com

About the MacLaren Art Centre

The MacLaren Art Centre acknowledges that we are living and working on the traditional territory of the Anishinaabeg people, which include the Odawa, Ojibwe, and Pott-a-wa-tomi Nations collectively known as the Three Fires Confederacy. The local bands consist of the Chippewa Tri-Council, who are made up of Beau-so-leil First Nation, Georgina Island First Nation and Rama First Nation. We also acknowledge the Wendat Nation (Huron) who occupied these lands prior to the middle of the 17th century. We are dedicated to honouring Indigenous history and culture and recognize the enduring presence of Indigenous peoples on this land. We are committed to moving forward in the spirit of reconciliation and respect with all First Nations, Métis, and Inuit People.