Art Review Archives - Queen's Journal

The Circus comes to town

Written on July 30, 2018. Posted in Arts.

Hanging from chandeliers and jumping on the bed are usually frowned upon—but Cirque du Soleil’s Corteo made an exception on July 4. Corteo, performed at the Leon’s Centre, tells the story of a clown named Mauro who is reliving his entire life while awaiting his own funeral. As he grapples with the...

New exhibits are a modest attempt at a big idea

Written on January 26, 2018. Posted in Arts.

This January, Modern Fuel unveiled two new exhibits for the winter semester — Ritualia and Untitled (eyelids). The wide open space of the main room features a variety of scattered pieces that viewers can wander around, under and through. Altogether, these form the exhibit Ritualia, meant to re-examine...

New year, new Agnes

Written on January 12, 2018. Posted in Arts.

The Agnes Etherington Art Centre is kicking off the new year with exhibits about the struggles of Indigenous people, women and quilters. The largest of the four new additions is Kent Monkman’s Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience, a multi-room collection of paintings and Canadian memorabilia...

Local and colourful

Written on March 28, 2014. Posted in Arts.

Nan Yeomans’ Intimate Views provides a unique look back at Kingston. The exhibit, fully titled Intimate Views: The Watercolours of Nan Yeomans, is now on display at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre, and it features a collection of the local artist’s works from a time she considered “the happiest time...

Going natural

Written on May 27, 2013. Posted in Arts.

Rural Canada has been the muse of many artists, yet its intrigue never seems to diminish. Such is the running theme within Keith Cornell’s Kingston exhibit, Into the Woods, at the Kingston Glass Studio and Gallery. Bringing life to the venue are the paintings of Cornell, exclusively of Ontario landscapes....

Blooming beauty

Written on April 4, 2013. Posted in Arts.

Something in bloom is neither in conception nor its prime. With their new exhibit titled Bloom, Audrey Assad and Rosalind Breen have created a marginal space with their pieces where each painting is on the fringe of becoming. The BFA students produce shock with bold colour schemes and large-scale...

Mundane and magical

Written on March 27, 2013. Posted in Arts.

Fight the routine. It’s a battle of boredom we’re all familiar with. The struggle between the mundane and the magical of everyday life collide in Emma Fowler’s exhibit, Rituals. Prom, family vacations and time spent at home are essential elements of our development from adolescence to adults. Fowler...

Collecting visions of primal art

Written on March 22, 2013. Posted in Arts.

It’s sexuality in its primitive form. Collecting Visions, housed inside the African Gallery of the Agnes Etherington Art Centre, is a historical and aesthetic exploration of tribes in West and Central Africa. Token ideas of male and female sexuality are taken from their 20th century tribal history. The...

Swimming too deep

Written on March 15, 2013. Posted in Arts.

Sometimes it’s better not to delve into the deep end. The main space of Union Gallery has been flooded with Brynn Higgins-Stirrup and David Woodward’s exhibition, entitled The Last Swim. The show combines the contrasting styles of two artists with collages, drawings and sculptures. Woodward says in...

A tale of morals and miracles

Written on March 8, 2013. Posted in Arts.

There’s a fine line between a substantial story line and aesthetic appeal in art. Tobit: Miracles and Morals tends to drive on the narrative side of the road. The exhibit, located in the Bader Gallery of the Agnes Etherington Art Centre, is a collection of various artists’ works that depict different...

Foggy thought

Written on February 28, 2013. Posted in Arts.

The eyes are essential. But what happens when you can’t see them? Monika Rosen’s exhibit Self-Refraction explores the subject of hidden self-identity and murky self-reflection. While the exhibit succesfully raises the question of self-conception by hiding figures’ eyes in most of the paintings, it...

Surrealist figures

Written on February 14, 2013. Posted in Arts.

Art can start a revolution. So can artists. That’s what happened in Quebec in the 1940s when a group of Quebec artists co-signed the Refus global manifesto, a call for liberty against the oppression of the Dupplessis regime and Catholicism in the province. These artists paid for their opposition,...

Foundations reconstructed

Written on February 11, 2013. Posted in Arts.

Art for art’s sake is still art, though not the most popular kind. Less, one of the latest features to arrive at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre, is a tribute to minimalism, attributing eight Canadian artists whose mediums range from sculptures to paintings. Minimalism, a seemingly underappreciated...

Artists in the artwork

Written on February 5, 2013. Posted in Arts.

Art galleries house the artwork, not the artists. Somehow Chris Miner manages to combine both in his new exhibit. In Artists Statements, Miner provides an intimate look at the artists behind the works through his photograph series. The Kingston photographer offers the artist statement through his...

Imprints on the human body

Written on February 1, 2013. Posted in Arts.

We all have markings on us, even if we don’t know it. They’re our own tattoos. In Melissa Smallridge’s exhibit Stories in Ink, she exhibits her very own tattoo tale, along with those of her friends. Her space shows a juxtaposition where conversation points between the patchwork-like pieces on the...

Eyes on civilization

Written on January 29, 2013. Posted in Arts.

It would seem disaster had struck in Modern Fuel’s Main Gallery art exhibit. Hamilton art group TH&B’s exhibition Resurrection combines sculpture and film to convey the conflicting relationship between nature and modern urbanization. Created by Simon Frank, Ivan Jurakic, Dave Hind and Tor Lukasik-Foss,...

A plague of politics

Written on January 11, 2013. Posted in Arts.

The plagues have moved out of the Bible and into society. The message played out in Carole Condé and Karl Beveridge’s exhibit The Plague doesn’t do so shyly. Afflicted by the ignorance of society, Condé and Beveridge’s prints thrust the chaos of the corrupt and crumbling world to the forefront of...

Let it shine

Written on November 29, 2012. Posted in Arts.

Step into Erin Shirreff’s Available Light exhibit and you’ll leave with an ostentatious realization about the tricks of illumination. In the Contemporary Feature Gallery at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre, you’ll find light as the primary agent in changing your perception of what you see. The trickery...

Untamed wings of solitude

Written on November 23, 2012. Posted in Arts.

Ebonnie Hollenbeck’s on the hunt and you’re her prey. Hollenbeck, BFA ’13, has successfully concocted a striking fusion of science and nature in her exhibit Into Your Hideout IV. In this installation, the Project Room’s walls are patterned with black trees, creating a forest scene. The paint seemingly...

Artful anatomy

Written on November 16, 2012. Posted in Arts.

Beneath your skin lies raw, unsheathed art. Anatomy Studies revels in the unknown and the undecided, and challenges the viewer to see the body in new ways. Fourth-year fine arts students Jaclyne Grimoldby and Anicka Vrana-Godwin present a collection of paintings, lithographs and prints that culminates...

Life story in art

Written on November 9, 2012. Posted in Arts.

Watch your step — there’s artwork on the floor. Kingston artist Lisa Figge is trying to tell you her story. Her exhibit I Can Only Make It Up Once contains four separate installation art pieces in Modern Fuel. You don’t have to look far for the first one — it’s underneath your feet when you walk inside. Figge...

A sight for sore ears

Written on November 2, 2012. Posted in Arts.

An art exhibit can sometimes assault your eyes, but not often assault your ears as well. Christopher Arnoldin, Jo-Anne Balcaen and Matt Rogalsky’s exhibit Smokin’ in the Boys’ Room asked me to use all of my senses and not just my sight. Rogalsky had 12 fender Stratocaster guitars hooked up to amps...

The art in the advertisement

Written on October 30, 2012. Posted in Arts.

Mark Streeter’s exhibit A Recent History of Poster Art in Kingston looks to change the culture of blissful ignorance in how we observe posters. Too often a quick glance at a poster for information overlooks the artwork behind the ad. Streeter’s exhibit seems like a colourful bombardment of these advertisements...

Circling the crosshairs of entertainment

Written on October 22, 2012. Posted in Arts.

Anna Elmberg Wright’s new exhibit Consensus Series is, in a word, lacklustre. I had done a little reading on Wright, BFA ’08, beforehand and was fully prepared to be captivated and intrigued by her work. Unfortunately, all I was left with was a sunken feeling of disappointment. The exhibit consists...

Objects to words

Written on October 19, 2012. Posted in Arts.

I walked into the Agnes Etherington Art Centre a student and walked out an artist. It’s not often you get to help create the art you see but David Rokeby is one step ahead of you with his exhibit The Giver of Names. Rokeby puts down his pencil and paintbrush in favour of something a little different...

Detachment in black and white

Written on October 16, 2012. Posted in Arts.

It was as if my own limbs had been removed. With incessant cringe in tow, I felt queasy when I visited Sophie Jodoin’s exhibit Small Dramas & Little Nothings. The painting series has a graphic nature that’s appropriate given Halloween’s imminent arrival. With a firm stylistic commitment to black...

Creating a spectacle

Written on May 28, 2012. Posted in Arts.

I’ve walked past Bagot and Queen St. dozens of times in my four years at Queen’s, but when I saw a radically green living room set up, I had to do a double take. For me the encounter wasn’t accidental. Earlier in the day I’d climbed aboard a school bus packed with artists and art lovers for the opening...

Creating accidents

Written on March 30, 2012. Posted in Arts.

When I first walked into Modern Fuel’s State of Flux Gallery, I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. But with the impulsive nature of the art, that’s not surprising. Chrissy Poitras’ exhibit Bits and Pieces is a collection of 12 silkscreen and encaustic pieces entitled Shimmy and Shake, paired with...

Jarring faces

Written on March 23, 2012. Posted in Arts.

Spending the afternoon inside Agnes Etherington Art Centre added a sinister feel to an otherwise beautiful day. The gallery’s exhibit Intimate Theatre brings together six contemporary artists who play with the boundary between the fantastical and the disturbing. Study for Diary for K #3 isn’t the...

Days in retrospect

Written on March 2, 2012. Posted in Arts.

Try and remember those days. Blowing soapy bubbles through a plastic stick and watching as they float away, bursting mid-sky — it was the best kind of carelessness. As a 20-something, it can be harder to indulge in such pure moments — with post-Reading Week catch-ups and end-of-year exams heavy on...

Tag: Art Review

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