Vancouver Art Gallery announces new exhibitions featuring Emily Carr, Edith Heath, and Jan Wade, opening July 10
The new shows featuring works by accomplished female artists run to next spring
Edith Heath arranging dinnerware at the factory, c. 1955 Heath Collection, Environmental Design Archives, UC Berkeley.
Edith Heath and Emily Carr: From the Earth as well as Jan Wade: Soul Power run at the Vancouver Art Gallery from July 10, 2021 to March 13, 2022
VANCOUVER ART GALLERY has just announced two new exhibitions featuring the work of groundbreaking female artists.
Edith Heath and Emily Carr: From the Earth brings together the work of two artists who never met but had much in common. Carr (1871–1945) and Heath (1911–2005) were both modernist West Coast women whose art was deeply influenced by the land and landscape and who established their careers creating works that spoke to their time and place.
The exhibition (curated by guest curators Jennifer M. Volland and Jay Stewart and Vancouver Art Gallery senior curator Bruce Grenville) features examples of Carr’s forest pictures produced in oil and gasoline on paper and in charcoal and oil on paper. It also includes oil on canvas paintings that illustrate human impact on the forest.
Heath, meanwhile, explored clay in many ways: its properties, where it came from, how it had been used throughout history, and how different types had varying aesthetic qualities. Her sense of form, combined with her background in science and cultural awareness, set her apart from other post-war North American potters.
Jan Wade: Soul Power (curated by Vancouver Art Gallery assistant curator Siobhan Nixon) features existing pieces from the artist’s diverse body of work as well as new ones she created specifically for the exhibition.
Wade has been drawing upon her lived experience as an African Canadian person and her mixed cultural heritage to create mixed-media paintings, textiles, and sculptural objects for more than three decades. Her work features everything from everyday objects such as buttons and Scrabble tiles to textile pieces stemming from the traditions of Southern African American quilting. She adds to or paints over her ever-evolving works over time.
In exploring the places and practices of her ancestors as well as contemporary political and social issues, Wade conceptualizes her practice as an ongoing philosophical, cultural, intellectual, and embodied journey.
More info is at Vancouver Art Gallery.
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