Bernice Vincent, In July the Sun Sets Thirty One Times, 1978. Acrylic, graphite, and paper mounted on board. McIntosh Gallery Collection, Western University Gift of the artist, 1998.

The View From Here

Curated by Jennie Kraehling

March 30 – June 16, 2023
Opening Reception: Sunday, April 2 from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m.
McIntosh Gallery, London ON

The View From Here brings together artworks from the McIntosh Gallery permanent collection that evoke a particular perspective, moment in time, landscape, or space. Whether painting, photograph, sculpture, projection or video, each artwork becomes a window through which the artist transports you to a specific place, focusing your attention on their singular way of looking to create a unique narrative that provides valuable insight into their creative process.

Michael Snow’s Condensation (A Cove Story), a 10-minute DVD projection using time-lapse photography, was the spark that initiated guest curator Jennie Kraehling’s thematic connections across the collection. What began as a search for portraiture and still life paintings quickly became an obsessive collecting of artworks inspired by Michael Snow’s meditation on a specific place. Kraehling sought to find the portrait in each landscape, the life stilled in each view from “here”, both literally and metaphorically.

“Here,” in Snow’s case, refers to both the temporal and meteorological conditions recorded at his cabin on the west coast of Newfoundland. The work is a compressed, condensed recording of an evolving series of weather-events and the resulting shifts of light and colour. The concept of capturing evolutions in the changing of seasons and time are also present in Roly Fenwick’s four seasonal canvases The Road to Big Bay – Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter and in Bernice Vincent’s In July the Sun Sets Thirty-One Times, a painting configured like a page from a calendar.

Themes of simple moments from everyday life also emerge with the jewel-like still life On the West Outside Wall by William Kurelek and Greg Curnoe’s autobiographical View from the left centre window on the north wall. Both paintings strongly represent the notion of home: unique glimpses at daily life, painted windows offering a view to the past.

Each “here” that the artists present are complete, contained environments inviting us on a journey, both to a physical place and a psychological state of mind. Time stands still, inviting us to reflect and experience each transformative illusion.

The View From Here not only highlights the breadth of the McIntosh Gallery collection but also honours its strong regional focus.

About the curator:

Jennie Kraehling is the Associate Director of the Michael Gibson Gallery in London, Ontario. She has worked at the gallery since 2001 after receiving her honours Art History / English degree from Queen’s University. Since 2018, she has volunteered as a member of the curatorial art committee for Art with Heart, an annual art auction in support of Casey House in Toronto, ON. In 2022 she was named the inaugural Curator in Residence generously funded by the Flora J. Tripp Memorial Fund.

Michael Snow, Condensation. A Cove Story (still), 2009. Blu-ray DVD projection. McIntosh Gallery Collection, Western University Purchase, W. H. Abbott Fund with support from the Canada Council for the Arts Acquisition Assistance program/Oeuvre achetée avec l’aide du programme d’aide aux acquisitions du Conseil des Arts du Canada, 2010.

Related Programming:

Opening Reception
Sunday, April 2, 2:00-4:00 PM | Remarks at 2:30 PM

Join us at the public opening reception of The View From Here on Sunday, April 2. All are welcome to attend this free event. Exhibition curator Jennie Kraehling and Sheri Cole, Director of Legacy Giving at Western University, will provide opening remarks.

Curator-led Exhibition Tour
Saturday, April 29, 2:00 PM

Join exhibition curator Jennie Kraehling for a guided tour of The View From Here at McIntosh Gallery on Saturday, April 29 at 2:00 p.m. All are welcome to attend this free event.

McIntosh Gallery
1151 Richmond Street N.
London, ON, N6A 3K7
mcintoshgallery.ca
Facebook / Twitter / Instagram: @McIntoshGallery

Monday to Friday: 10 AM – 5 PM
Saturday: 12 PM – 4 PM
McIntosh Gallery offers free admission to all exhibitions
We regret that McIntosh Gallery is not wheelchair accessible

The Flora J. Tripp Memorial Fund was established in 2017 through the Flora and Ian Tripp Endowment Fund in honour of Maurice C. Stubbs for his many contributions to the visual arts community as an artist and McIntosh Gallery’s first permanent curator (1969 to 1989).

Based on funding available, McIntosh Gallery administers two programs: a Collections Management Internship designed for university students to learn about the operations of a public gallery and its responsibilities to research, conserve, document and interpret a collection held in the public trust; and a Curator in Residence Program for curators to research the McIntosh Gallery collection of contemporary Canadian art and to organize exhibitions and publications based on this research.