Nature of Conflict
The object of my work is to report the actuality of events. Francisco Goya
NATURE OF CONFLICT Curated by David Hall
Sept 10 - Oct 3, 2015 Warren G. Flowers Art Gallery Dawson College David Hall Laura Millard Michael Smith Barbara Todd
Barbara Todd: B2 Stealth Bomber, paper stencil
The Nature of Conflict Throughout art history artists have sought to understand the nature of conflict by posing certain questions. Why does man dehumanizes his fellow human being? How is it that we let conflict lay waste to life and the environment? When is conflict necessary to bring together nations? Is war sometimes unavoidable? These are complex questions that should not be left unanswered because they help us understand who and what we are as a species. In the West we can cite many examples of works of art that have brought attention to the horrors of war. Francisco Goya’s series of prints, ‘The Disasters of War’ rejected earlier heroics of Spanish court painting to unsentimentally show the barbarity of the Peninsular War between France and Spain in the early Nineteen Century. The biting drawings of Otto Dix captured his very personal experience as a German infantryman during World War One. John Singer Sargent’s painting ‘Gassed’, depicts a line of World War One soldiers walking towards a dressing station. Their eyes are bandaged, blinded by the effects of gas, and they are assisted by a pair of medical orderlies, which gives the large scale painting the look of a Grecian frieze as well as a Renaissance religious procession, to further add irony to the painting, an autonomous group of soldiers are involved in a game of football, seemingly oblivious to what is happening in the foreground. Molly Lamb Bobak, the first official Canadian woman war artist to go overseas, documented Canada’s war effort during World War Two, particularly the activities of the Canadian Woman’s Army Corps. In her 1944 painting ‘Gas Drill’, the dazed infantrymen of Singer Sargent’s ‘Gassed’ are replaced by a more intimate look at a group of C.W.A.C recruits tentatively trying on gas masks. Art historical examples and the wealth of war and military documentation provide a source of imagery for some contemporary artists. Amongst some artists there exists a fascination with the historical campaigns and the tools of war. This fascination is not exclusively romantic, but rather a desire to understand the reasons for conflict and to trace the political and technological environment of today through its military antecedence. This exhibition gathers together four contemporary visual artists who draw upon the imagery of war to produce personal mediations on the nature of conflict and the role of the military within our societies.The artists involved in this exhibition are Michael Smith, Laura Millard, Barbara Todd and David Hall. They work in a variety of media; painting, drawing, photography, and fibre. These artists pursue a variety of aesthetic concerns, but their works selected for this exhibition share a basis in military imagery.
Michael Smith’s large format seascape paintings are rich and compelling mediations on the opposing forces of man and nature. The artist states his interest in the illusion of illuminated spaces and the drama of the scene depicted. The use of an expressionist, impasto palette enables him to explore brief moments where atmospheric conditions engulf a certain place - the jagged icy sea. In these pictures Smith references actual navel destroyers prowling the North Atlantic. These compositions recall collisions between man, machine and nature.
For Smith there is a strong connection between acuity and materiality. The artist initially has made detailed drawings of the vessels that eventually appear as semi-abstract forms on the horizon lines of his two large canvases entitled, Wake, (2014) and Under-tide, (2006). He has done this to better understand the mechanics of the craft. It’s displacement – how it would actually look in the water. These compositions are more concerned with capturing a sensation, than illustrating technical information. Together with David Hall’s paintings, Dearly Departed, (2014) and Sea Wolf, (2015), these contemporary painters share some affinity to earlier pioneers of the personal and expressive marine painting, such as the French artist Philippe–Jacques De Loutherbourg and the British painter, Joseph Mallord William Turner. Starting in the early Nineteenth Century, both of these painters rejected the dominant tradition of Seventeenth Century Dutch school of marine painting with its emphasis on the accurate description of ships, sea and sky in favour of an individualistic and imaginative approach to marine and landscape subjects. Their compositions placed emphasis on colour, form and atmosphere, thus anticipating painterly abstraction by a hundred years. Laura Millard comes to her various bodies of work with a strong understanding of Western art history and a sense of irony. Her art is rooted in the practice of drawing and painting. In her recent series, ‘Contrails’ she uses photographs of jet vapour trails taken at military air shows to create photo/drawings of indexical traces of the airplanes flight patterns. The artist states, “ these ‘line drawings’ become loaded with the spectacle, futility and ephemeral nature of these displays of military showmanship. I am playing with the idea of the artist’s mark and the critique that has surrounded displays of gestural bravado in the history of painting”. These pictures are beautiful and seductive and at the same time menacing for they document the awesome power of today’s military hardware. By likening the military air show’s spectacle to the ever-present machismo of the art world Millard highlights the aggressive nature and one-upmanship of these respective institutions. It is this need to dominate and impress, sometimes to extremes, which continues to mire our societies in conflicts. Barbara Todd’s artwork is interdisciplinary and she is best known for her use of quilted textile material. She fuses a minimalist aesthetic to a poetic and politicized sensibility. Security Blankets, is the title of a series of fabric appliquéd quilts from the 1990’s. They explore the artist’s apprehension and fear of the threat posed by the world’s nuclear arsenals. The silhouette of bombers, missiles and business suits on a quilted, sombre-hued ground makes a forceful contrast between the domestic object and the potent imagery therein. The artist states, “each quilt points to the irresolvable irony at the heart of current social and political life, the conflict between power and human values”. These works play on several contradictions – bombers and missiles associated with the world of men are stitched from woolen suit fabric associated with the traditional women’s role in the domestic sphere. Todd’s compositions have a commanding presence due to their large size and the silhouette shapes employed in their design, yet they are soft and flexible and could actually form a protective layer against a perceived threat. By making these security inspired artworks the artist seems to be reclaiming some of the territory of the male dominated political/military systems, which routinely justifies vast expenditures in the name of security.
David Hall’s fictionalized landscape paintings focus on the symptoms of relentless change that has been the fate of our environment, both ecological and social since the Industrial Revolution. Mysterious aerial perspectives and moody atmospheres mark these canvases. Many of his compositions have been derived from documentary war photographs, such as images of the aftermath of various Allied bombing campaigns in the Pacific and Europe during World War Two. The artist has written. “These paintings capture not the frozen moment of a photograph but the continual process of transition that defines our experience of landscape. This transition is both a process that the landscape undergoes, through the forces of nature and the forces of history, and a process that the viewers undergoes, through shifting memories and associations with the landscape portrayed�. Over the past twenty years the artist has painted motifs associated with two controversial aerial bombing campaigns of World War Two - Cologne Cathedral in Germany and Monte Cassino in Southern Italy. In the latter case accounts of the ferocity of battle, the cost in human lives and the destruction of the sites is what draw the artist to the subject. In the exhibition paintings of the medieval abbey are presented in a vignette grouping. These are small, speculative meditations on a time and place much removed from our own. The exhibition presented here is a very small representation of a very broad subject. It involves a group of visual artists who have no direct experience with conflict, but none the less have reflected upon it and found a way of expressing their feelings about the subject. The goal is to present artworks that promote consciousness and dialogue within the Dawson community and by extension the greater public. 2014 marked the hundredth anniversary of the beginning of World War One and this year 2015 marks the seventieth anniversary of the end of World War Two. These two Twentieth Century events had a profound affect on the course of human history. They influenced almost every technological and social aspect of life in the Twenty-First Century. These anniversaries present a timely opportunity to reflect upon the tragedy of human conflict. David Hall Montreal, 2015
DAVID HALL
Left: Installation View, Abbey, 2010 Right: Dearly Departed, 2014, oil on canvas, 107x115 cm.
Sea Wolf, 2015, oil on canvas, 107x115 cm.
David Hall
Lives and works in Montreal
Education
1994 M.F.A., Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax, Nova Scotia 1992 B.F.A., Emily Carr College of Art and Design, Vancouver, British Columbia 1984 Diploma (Painting) Emily Carr College of Art and Design, Vancouver, British Columbia
Selected Solo Exhibitions 2009 2007 2006 2005 2003 2003 2001 2001 1999 1998 1997
After Landscape, Galerie Art Mûr, Montréal, Québec Shifting Ground, Warren G. Flowers Gallery, Dawson College, Montreal, Quebec Peinture Urbains, Galerie Lilian Rodriguez, Montréal, Québec Peintures recentes, Galerie Lilian Rodriguez, Montréal, Québec Moon Window, Art Gallery of Bishop’s University, Lennoxville, Quebec Cityscapes, McClure Gallery, Westmount, Quebec Paysages Urbains, Usine C, Montreal, Quebec Skies, Galerie Lilian Rodriguez, Montreal, Quebec Série Marine, Galerie Lilian Rodriguez, Montreal, Quebec Paysages, Galerie Lilian Rodriguez, Montreal, Quebec Peinture Recentes, Galerie Clark, Montreal, Quebec
Selected Group Exhibitions
2015 Reflects VI, Maison De La Culture Marie-Uguay, Montréal, Québec Territoires Imaginés, Collection Loto Quebec, Maison Hamel-Bruneau, Québec, Qc. 2014 Fine Arts Faculty Biennial 11, Warren G. Flowers Gallery, Dawson College, Montreal, Quebec 2012 Transforming Futures, Warren G. Flowers Gallery, Dawson College, Montreal, Quebec 2010 Residency, Warren G. Flowers Gallery, Dawson College, Montreal, Quebec 2010 Who Done It, OCAD Fund Raiser, Toronto, Ontario 2010 L’ Anti-Sublime, maison de la culture du Plateau-Mont Royal, Montreal, Quebec 2010 Another Country, Anna Leonowens Gallery, Halifax, Nova Scotia 2009 Global Warning: Scenes from a Planet Under Pressure, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, Quebec 2009 Second Marché, Galerie Espace Robert Poulin, Montréal, Québec 2009 Fine Arts Faculty Biennial 9, Dawson College, Montreal, Quebec 2009 Ateliers Portes Ouvertes 2, Centre Clark, Montréal, Québec 2008 Ateliers Portes Ouvertes, Centre Clark, Montréal, Québec 2008 Le collège comme lieu de création, Maison de la Culture Notre Dame de Grâce, Montréal, Québec
Selected Collections
Musée des beaux-arts de Montreal, Quebec, La collection pret d ‘oeuvres d ‘art du Musee du Quebec, Canada Council Art Bank, The Surrey Art Gallery, Surrey, B.C., Gildon Collection, Collection Pay Systems La Collection Loto Québec, Private Collections
LAURA MILLARD
Left: Tailspin, 2010, digital print and paint, 122x122cm. Right: Icarus, 2010, digital print and paint, 173x112cm.
Installation View: Where Where Exhibition Space, Beijing, China, 2011
Laura Millard
Lives and works in Toronto
Education 1992 1983 1981
Masters of Fine Arts, Studio Arts, Concordia University, Montreal, QC Bachelor Fine Arts, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax The Alberta College of Art, Calgary
Selected Solo Exhibitions 2012 2012 2011 2010 2008 2007 2007 2006 2002 1999 1998 1998 1997
Meltwater: Recent Work, Skew Gallery, Calgary, AB Meltwater, Latcham Gallery, Stouffville, ON Contrail, Where Where Exhibition Space, Beijing, China Meltwater, Leo Kamen Gallery, Toronto, ON Precipitate, Leo Kamen Gallery, Toronto, ON Glide, Skew Gallery, Calgary, AB Torque, Leo Kamen Gallery, Toronto, ON Skate, Summit Gallery, Banff, AB Recent Work, Pari Nadimi Gallery, Toronto, ON Symbiont, Pari Nadimi Gallery, Toronto, ON Groundcloth, MacLaren Arts Centre, Barrie, ON Recent Work, Pari Nadimi Gallery, Toronto, ON ground, Carl Davis Gallery, Ottawa, ON field, Woodstock Art Gallery, Woodstock, ON
Selected Group Exhibitions 2013 2011 2008 2007 2006 2005 2005 2003 2002 2001 2000
Game On!, St. Lawrence University Art Gallery, New York RCA New Inductees, Harbinger Gallery, Waterloo, ON Arena, Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Halifax, colour catalogue. Walking the Dog Back Home, Leo Kamen Gallery, Toronto, ON Taking the Dog for a Walk, Leo Kamen Gallery, Toronto, ON Love on the Rocks, Michael Gibson Gallery, two-person exhibition London, ON Our River, Journey of the Bow, Glenbow Museum, Calgary, AB Surfaces, Michael Gibson Gallery, London, ON Flicker, Jeffrey Coploff Gallery, New York City, NY Bliss, Confederation Centre Art Gallery, Charlottetown, PEI Turbulence, Maison de la Culture, two-person exhibition, Cotes Des Neiges, Montreal, QC Floe, Michael Gibson Gallery, two-person exhibition, London, ON Critical Sites: Environmental Works, Rosemont Art Gallery, Regina, SK
Selected Collections
Department of Foreign Affairs, MacLaren Arts Centre, The Alberta Art Foundation, Canada Council Art Bank, RBC London, Toronto Dominion Bank, Museum London, Glenbow Museum, Fidelity Investments, Boston Fornsal Museum, Visby, Sweden, Northern Transportation Company Limited, Edmonton
MICHAEL SMITH
Left: Broken News #2, 2015, oil on board, 61 x 76 cm. Right: Burning #6, 2003 graphite, pastel and ink on paper 56x76 cm.
Wake, 2014, acrylic on canvas, 162x198 cm.
Michael Smith
Lives and works in Montreal
Education
1980 - 83 MFA Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec 1971 - 74 BFA Falmouth College of Art, Falmouth, England 1970 - 71 St Alban’s College of Art, England
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2015 Paintings, Art 45, Montreal 2014 ‘Cut’, Trepanier Baer Gallery, Calgary Alberta 2013 The Vanishing Line, Michael Gibson Gallery, London. Ontario 2013 New Works, Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto 2012 Recent Works, Galerie Michel Guimont, Quebec 2012 New Works, Trepanier Baer Gallery, Calgary 2012 New Paintings, Studio 21, Halifax 2011 New Works, Art 45, Montreal 2011 Inversions, New Paintings Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto, Ontario 2011 Mirror Sky with Studies, Eleanor London Gallery, Cote Saint-Luc Library, Montreal, Quebec 2010 Crater Ponds, Michael Gibson Gallery, London, Ontario. 2010 Recent Works, Studio 21 Halifax Nova Scotia. 2010 Recent Works, Art Gallery of Peel, Peel, Ontario. 2009 Luminocratic, Art 45, Montreal, Quebec. 2008 Recent Works, Galerie Michel Guimont, Quebec, Quebec. 2008 Deeps and Skies, Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto, Ontario. 2007 Cradle of Words, Trepanier Baer Gallery, Calgary, Alberta. 2007 Recent Works, Studio 21, Halifax, Nova Scotia. (Two person show). 2006 Masse & Dissolution, Galerie de Bellefeuille, Montreal, Quebec. 2006 Returning Skies, Michael Gibson Gallery, London, Ontario. 2006 Wresting Vision, Trepanier Baer Gallery, Calgary, Alberta.
Selected Group Exhibitions
2014 Territoires Imaginés, Collection Loto Quebec, Travelling Exhibition: Centre national d’exposition, Saguenay; Centre d’exposition de Rouyn-Noranda; Centre d’exposition de Val-d’Or (Repérage) 2014 Edge of Wilderness, Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto, Ontario. 2014 Works on Paper: Watercolour Unbound, Studio Georgeville, Quebec. 2014 Forging a Nation: Canada Goes to War, The Military Museums, Calgary, Alberta. 2012 Victoria Collects, Art Gallery of greater Victoria, Victoria BC, Catalogue Exhibition 2011 Tracés: récentes acquisitions de la Collection Loto Quebec, Montreal, Quebec. 2011 Noir, Art 45, Montreal, Quebec. 2010 Inaugural Group Exhibition Galerie Michel Guimont, Quebec City, Quebec. 2009 Beaverbrook Art Gallery, 50 Anniversary Collection, Fredericton, New Brunswick.
Selected Collections
Air Canada, Tom Thomson Memorial Art Gallery, Appleton Museum of Art, Florida Universite de Sherbrooke, Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Westbourne Industries, Banque de Developpement du Canada, Musee d’art de Joliette, Musee d’art contemporain de Montreal, Musee de Quebec, Canadian Pacific, Musee du BasSaint-Laurent, Claridge Incorporated, National Bank, Pan Canadian Petroleum Ltd., Parlee McLaws, Fidelity Investments, Pepsi Cola Canada, Lantic Sugar, Sedgwick Insurance, The Canada Council Art Bank
BARBARA TODD
Left: Security Blanket, 1988, wool, appliqué and quilted, 270x270 cm. Right: Overkill, 1992, Wool, appliqué and quilted 269 x 264 cm. Next page: Wild Goose Chase, Wool, appliqué and quilted 282x 257cm. 1991
Barbara Todd
Lives and works in Troy, New York
Education
University of Guelph, Honours B.A. (Fine Art) Ontario, Canada
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2012 Side by Side, Galerie Art Mûr, Montreal Teaching a stone to talk, The Tom Thomson Gallery, Owen Sound, ON. 2009 Stone Days, Galerie Art Mûr, Montreal 2006 Stone Days, Oboro New Media Lab, Montreal 2003 du ciel, Conseil des arts textiles, (Galerie Art Mûr), Montreal Skin, National Exhibition Centre, Estevan Saskatchewan 2000 Heaven and earth, McClure Gallery, Montreal 1999 Oeuvres récentes, Galerie Lilian Rodriguez, Montreal 1998 Installation of Quilts and Drawings, Textile Museum of Canada, Toronto 1996 A Bed is a Boat, Galerie Oboro, Montreal Night Sky, Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, Banff, Alberta
Selected Group Exhibitions
2012 Dreamland, The Textile Museum of Canada, Toronto Friend of a Friend, Thompson Giroux Gallery, Chatham, NY Grey Matters, Albany International Airport, Albany, NY 2010 Femmes artistes, Œuvres de la collection du Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec The Imaged Word, Albany International Airport 2009 Hudson Mohawk Regional, Albany University Gallery, Albany, NY The Space Between, The Arts Center, Saratoga Springs, NY Textile Art in Canada, Montreal Centre for Contemporary Textiles, Montreal. Global Warming: Scenes from a Planet under Pressure, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. 2008 Hudson Mohawk Regional, Albany Institute of History and Art 2007 Hand Face Body, The Gladstone Hotel, Toronto 2005 Moral Fibre: Engaged Works in Textile Media, Mount Saint Vincent University Art Gallery, Halifax, Nova Scotia. 2004 Space Invaders, The Arts Center of the Capital Region, Troy, NY. High Points: Selections from the Collection of Contemporary Canadian Art, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Celan , Barbara Todd and Sorel Cohen, Dazibao, Montreal
Selected Collections
Musée des beaux arts de Montreal, Musée national du Québec, Québec Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, The Canada Council Art Bank, Vancouver Art Gallery, The Mackenzie Gallery, Regina, Surrey Art Gallery, Winnipeg Art Gallery Canadian Museum of Civilization, Federation of the Combined Jewish Appeal, Montreal Macdonald Stewart Art Center, University of Guelph, Alberta Art Foundation, Edmonton Banff Centre for the Arts, Grant McEwan Community College, Edmonton, Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, The Library and Gallery, Cambridge, Ontario
Laura Millard: Drone Shadow, Gallery Installation The Drone Shadows are a series of installations, comprising of the outline of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), or drone: a 1:1 representation conveying both the physical reality, and the apparent invisibility, of drone aircraft. Drones are used in wars and covert operations worldwide, by many countries. They are used to surveil, to fight, to assassinate, to police, to deter migrants - and to study hurricanes and fight forest fires. But they remain largely invisible, in part due to the manner of their operation, flying for long periods high in the atmosphere, and in part because the political motivations for their use prefer to remain obscure. In order to understand the world around us, we sometimes need to draw it out. If you can’t really describe the world around you, you can’t fully act in it, and are made powerless. When you can describe it, you can debate and critique it. Drawing its shadow is just the first step. James Bridle http://booktwo.org London
Acknowledgments Special Thanks To: The Office of the Director General Diane Gauvin, Academic Dean AndrĂŠa Cole, Dean of Creative and Applied Arts David Hall, Curator Warren G. Flowers Art Gallery Committee Don Corman, Director, Warren G. Flowers Art Gallery Dawson College Fine Arts Department Helen Wawrzetz, Administrative Support, Visual Arts Department Catalogue Design: Don Corman Catalogue Essay: David Hall