ACI Videos

Founder and Executive Director Sara Angel talks to CBC News about the launch of the Art Canada Institute on November 28, 2013. Her vision was simple: make Canadian art history accessible to twenty-first century audiences by creating a multi-vocal, bilingual, comprehensive web resource on the country’s visual culture.

Monkman addresses how the ACI’s publication "Revision and Resistance" is the only book to offer the behind-the-scenes story of "mistikôsiwak (Wooden Boat People)", two genre-defying paintings that have changed the conversation about art history.

Boyle and Perera reflect on their experiences of navigating cultural distinctions within their collaborative relationships with institutions and other artists.

“Few artists have been able to accomplish the abstraction of pure emotion through cold, hard stone as Oviloo Tunnillie. In fact viewers may wonder if they are seeing work by an Inuit artist, as Oviloo’s sculpture crosses cultural lines.” Darlene Coward Wight

“Emily Carr is one of Canada’s best-known artists. Her life and work reflect a profound commitment to the land and peoples she knew and loved. Her sensitive evocations reveal an artist grappling with the spiritual questions that the Canadian landscape and culture inspired in her.” Lisa Baldissera

“A self-taught polymath, Brooker was one of Canada’s first abstract artists. His relentless exploration of new ways of seeing situates him among this country’s most accomplished early modernist painters.” James King

“Homer Watson’s landscapes were biographical manifestos and philosophical statements, an opportunity to explore nature’s inner life, power, and meaning and to probe the delicate relationship of respect that he believed human beings should establish with the natural world.” Brian Foss

“Notman’s photographs still resonate as vivid works of art beyond simply documentation, and they serve as a rich starting point for exploring the complexity of nineteenth-century life in Canada.” Sarah Parsons

“The circumstances of Gershon Iskowitz’s early life—the trauma of the Holocaust and the uncertainty of the immediate postwar period, followed by immigration to Canada—provide the context within which we must try to understand and appreciate his work.” Ihor Holubizky

ACI author Brian Foss discusses how Homer Watson, in the nineteenth century, first portrayed the surrounding landscape as specifically Canadian, rather than as a pastiche of European influences.

ACI author Sarah Parsons discusses how William Notman arrived in Canada from Scotland in 1856 and swiftly established himself as Montreal’s most prominent photographer.

ACI author James King discusses how despite Bertram Brooker’s lack of formal art training, he painted in a wide variety of styles, creating cutting-edge modernist works and becoming one of Canada’s first abstract artists.

Chief curator of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection Sarah Milroy discusses how Emily Carr was one of the first artists of national significance to emerge from the West Coast.

“Molly Lamb Bobak’s career as a professional artist began as Canada’s first official woman war artist. She remains best known for the paintings she produced once the hostilities ended in Europe and for the humorous, satirical drawings she included in her wartime diary.” Michelle Gewurtz

Shirley Madill discusses the life and work of Sandy Bay First Nation / Kaa-wii-kwe-tawang-kak artist Robert Houle, whose work has opened critical discussion on the political and cultural issues surrounding Indigenous peoples in Canada.

Kathleen Munn was a pioneer of modern art in Canada. Georgiana Uhlyarik, Fredrik S. Eaton curator, Canadian Art, at the Art Gallery of Ontario, discusses Munn’s bold use of colour and advanced abstracts.

Andrew Kear explores the life and work of Prairie artist, William Kurelek, whose meticulously crafted paintings often explore his Roman Catholic religion and Ukrainian-Canadian cultural roots.

John G. Hatch discusses the life and work of Canadian artist Paterson Ewen. Best known for his gouged, painted plywood surfaces, Ewen’s work spoke to the psychological challenges he struggled with throughout his life.

“Houle reconciles and synthesizes contemporary art trends and Indigenous traditions, encouraging a renewed vision of the world that regains the missing caverns of First Nations cultural memory.” Shirley Madill

“Paterson Ewen was unmistakably original. His work bridged figurative and abstract, fused painting and sculpture to create a whole new medium, and broadened the definition of Canadian landscape, revitalizing national interest in this art.” John G. Hatch

“Munn will always be a mystery—and this makes her all the more irresistible.” Georgiana Uhlyarik

ACI author Andrew Kear explores how in 1959, William Kurelek met Toronto’s art dealer Av Isaacs, who would launch his career.

“McNicoll maintained a strong attachment to the fundamental principles of ‘pure’ Impressionism and pushed the style further than any other Canadian artist.” Samantha Burton

ACI author Samantha Burton discusses how Helen McNicoll’s impressionist paintings redefined Canadian art.

“FitzGerald helped to foster the notion of Western Canada as a beautiful and inviting place. The landscape was not only a locale with economic benefits but also one dominated by nature’s glorious majesty of open sky and a sense of freedom.” Michael Parke-Taylor

ACI author Michael Parke-Taylor discusses how Lionel LeMoine FitzGerald captured the essence of the Canadian prairie in his art.

ACI author Ray Cronin discusses how Alex Colville painted some of the most iconic images ever created in this country.

“Even as Colville concentrated on creating images drawn from his specific surroundings and experience, he was able to evoke a universal language of myth and metaphor that reverberates throughout our culture.” Ray Cronin

“William Kurelek was an artist of extremes. As no Canadian artist before him or since, Kurelek attracted, through his at once sentimental and monstrous imagery, the attention of both popular audiences and seasoned critics.” Andrew Kear

“When Norval Morrisseau arrived on the Canadian art scene in 1962...few Indigenous people made art that was viewed as contemporary within the narrow framework accepted in mainstream cultural circles.” Carmen Robertson

Enamored of his hometown, Curnoe helped spearhead London Regionalism. His brightly coloured compositions and text-based elements celebrate both Canada and his anti-establishment views.

A trailblazer in Canadian art, Macdonald’s spiritual identification with nature and his unique marriage of graphic design and painting led to a singular style of abstraction.

Paraskeva Clark persevered as an artist, despite the difficult conditions of her upbringing, creating profoundly provocative political critiques through simple yet powerful imagery.

ACI author Joyce Zemans discusses how Jock Macdonald’s innovations in abstraction make him a Canadian art pioneer.

ACI author Nancy Campbell discusses how Shuvinai Ashoona’s work reflects dramatic changes in the North and overturns stereotypical notions of Inuit art.

ACI author Judith Rodger discusses how Greg Curnoe’s regionalist approach to his art makes his work essentially Canadian.

ACI author Sarah E.K. Smith discusses how General Idea’s œuvre pushed boundaries and addressed key social issues, including the AIDS crisis.

Characterized by fantastical creatures and dream-like landscapes, Shuvinai’s works represent not only her own deeply personal interpretation of the natural world, but also a global social community.

Provocative, controversial, and visionary, General Idea (1969–1994) created a platform for social change through the group’s inventive performances, installations, paintings, sculptures, and photography—and its legendary AIDS campaign.

Jaleen Grove and Maclean’s managing editor Dianna Symonds discuss the life and work of one of the founders of Painters Eleven, Oscar Cahén. Follow his escape from Nazi Germany to his career as a successful commercial illustrator and leader of the Canadian abstract art movement.

Christine Lalonde talks about the life and work of Pitseolak Ashoona, one of the first Inuit artists to produce drawings in the early 1960s. Find out how her thousands of depictions of traditional daily life and legends inspired generations of Inuit artists in her wake.

Yves Gaucher was a leading member of Quebec’s Plasticien movement. Author Roald Nasgaard discusses Gaucher’s highly ordered geometrical images that pushed the boundaries of Canadian painting to question the experience of colour.

Gerta Moray and Sarah Milroy discuss the life and work of Emily Carr. Best known for her bold and vibrant images of British Columbia’s Northwest Coast, Carr was also an innovative painter, fusing of wide-range of stylistic influences.

Travelling under the auspices of the Hudson’s Bay Company, Kane (1810–1871) documented Canada’s western landscape and its indigenous peoples in a body of drawings and paintings that today are regarded as one of North America’s most significant ethnographic records and artistic expressions.

Johanne Sloane introduces us to Canadian artist Joyce Wieland: filmmaker, painter, and multimedia artist. Learn more about the role feminism, nationalism, and environmentalism played in her startlingly original art.

Gerta Moray discusses the life and work of Painters Eleven co-founder, Harold Town. A painter, printmaker, and collage artist, Town was provocative, prolific, and a technical virtuoso. Learn more about his contributions to the Canadian Abstract Expressionist movement.

Gerta Moray explores the life and work of Painters Eleven co-founder, Harold Town. A painter, printmaker, and collage artist, he was provocative, prolific, and a technical virtuoso in the Canadian art scene.

Sarah Parsons reveals the life and work of Canadian photographer William Notman. Learn more about his rise to international acclaim and how he changed the way the camera was perceived in the late nineteenth century.

Martha Langford looks at the life and work of Canadian artist Michael Snow. A leading figure in the new media and Conceptual art movements in Canada, Snow sought to intensify the spectator’s involvement with art. Learn more about his prolific career which spanned more than fifty years of production.

Art Gallery of Ontario curator Georgiana Uhlyarik discusses how Kathleen Munn, one of the country’s most significant female artists, developed her unique geometrically-based spiritual vision.