This exhibition highlights a selection of recent additions to The Rooms Provincial Art Gallery Division's Collection, most of which have been generous gifts from artists and collectors to the people of this province. There have also been some purchases, made possible through matching funds from The Canada Council for the Arts. All are valued acquisitions, as The Rooms moves forward in building its collections.

John Hartman has painted cities both large and small; his imagined aerial perspectives look down on the contours of the urban space where towers, cranes, and docks meet the open blue of an ocean, lake or river. As one of Canada's leading contemporary painters, Hartman is known for his large-scale expressionistic landscape paintings animated with the imagery of local historic events and personal narratives. Born in Midland, Ontario, John Hartman studied Fine Art at McMaster University and has exhibited in Canada, Great Britain, Denmark, and Germany. This exhibition is curated by Stuart Reid.

This exhibition is organized and circulated by the Tom Thomson Art Gallery, Owen Sound, Ontario; the presenting sponsor is Scotiabank Group.


Image: John Hartman, The Southside Hills, St. John's, 2004, Oil on Linen, 48 X 54 Inches, Nicolas Metivier Gallery, Toronto

Opening Reception,
Friday, December 4, 7:30 pm

Curatorial Lecture,
Wednesday, February 3, 2010 7 pm

Death, decay, beauty, and sensuality; the work of Helen Gregory ponders the boundaries of transience and permanence, nature and culture. The artist's ongoing investigation of the act of collecting by focusing on organic forms such as skulls, bones, desiccated birds and dead flowers has resulted in a body of work that is simultaneously dramatic, haunting, macabre, beautiful and ostentatious. This exhibition is curated by Lisa Moore.

Credit: Helen Gregory, Lament II, Acrylic on canvas, 2006.  

The Inner Rooms presents significant artworks from The Rooms’ permanent collection, offering visitors of all ages encounters with art and self-directed learning about it.  These works are elemental to the continuing stories of our collections and the visual arts in this province.  This exhibition will be enriched with information about artists, art contexts and techniques available through hands-on activities and new technologies. 

Included are artists such as Anne Meredith Barry, Peter Bell, David Blackwood, Christopher Pratt, Mary Pratt, Helen Parsons Shepherd, Reginald Shepherd, Gerald Squires and Don Wright.

Image: Anne Meredith Barry, Whale Song #10, Herding Capelin, 1989, Mixed media on canvas, 183 cm x 122 cm, The Rooms Provincial Art Gallery, Collection of Memorial University of Newfoundland, Acc # 89.15 

Water and ice have been recurring themes in the work of Canadian artist Jan Kabatoff. Most recently, the world’s glaciers have been her source of fascination, reflecting deep concerns with change, transformation and the interconnectedness of the natural world.

Since 2005, Kabatoff journeyed to seven different glaciers from Alberta to Mongolia to the southernmost reaches of South America, charting their ephemeral nature as global warming accelerates their melting. Ice Flows and Sound Retreats is a multi-media installation combining painting, mould impressions, hand-dyed textiles, photography and sound recordings of glacial ‘voices’; an experience linking science and human wonder with a shared, growing concern.  This exhibition is curated by Bruce Johnson.

In this new body of work, St. John’s artist Greg Bennett explores the imagery and symbolic value of horses. Bennett’s paintings -full of doubled and mirrored images, overlapping planes and repeating motifs- offer surfaces where the material and the dreamlike meet.

Greg Bennett is the latest artist-in-residence participating in The Rooms’ Space-Based program. This initiative supports emerging and mid-career artists in the creation of new work within our on-site studio. This exhibition is curated by Bruce Johnson.