
… An Experience of Nature: Landscapes from the Permanent Collection
Curated by Sally Frater, with assistance from Amira Radwan and Brent Garbett
Drawing from the Art Gallery of Guelph’s permanent collection, this exhibition explores the use of abstraction by artists in their depictions of the natural world. While the decision to create art inspired by nature often begins with an impulse to replicate and document the environment, the works within this installation veer into experimental explorations of colour, form, and composition. Illustrating the ways in which landscape in art frequently speaks to the idea of nature as a sublime force to be reckoned with, the works included here underscore that renderings of nature say more about what our perceptions and collective remove from it than accurately conveying how it actually exists.
The exhibition takes its title from art critic Barry Schwabsky’s book Landscape Painting Now: From Abstraction to New Romanticism in which he observes that “A landscape painting is not necessarily a representation of a landscape, but rather something that, in being constructed out of pieces of representation…kindles an experience of its own – one that, as those fragments of resemblance suggest, is somehow like an experience of nature.”
Organized and presented by the Art Gallery of Guelph with the support of the Ontario Arts Council and Canada Council for the Arts.
Image detail: Arthur F. McKay, Odyssey to a Mallard Drake, 1983, acrylic on paper, 52.5 cm x 72 cm. Gift of Joan and W. Ross Murray, Whitby Ontario, 1983.
Gallery
Artists
Melissa Doherty
Paul Fournier
Lawren Harris
Prudence Heward
Rita Letendre
Arthur F. McKay
Lucy Qinnuayuak
Paul Rainey
Donald Otto Rogers
A.D. Runions
Rolph Scarlett
View More Exhibitions

exhibition
May 22.2025 / August 29.2025
Call for Artists: Art Gallery of Guelph’s 2025 Summer Exhibition

exhibition
May 3.2025 / May 8.2025

exhibition
April 24.2025 / April 29.2025
Through photography, Bahar Enshaeian unravels the intricate layers of memory, identity, and belonging. Rooted in personal experience, her work speaks to the complexities of migration, displacement, and the search for home.

exhibition
April 10.2025 / April 15.2025
What utility can we find in vestiges of the past? This question shapes Hal Fortin’s interdisciplinary practice and its distinct sculptural language, punctuated by humour, dream logic, and the rhythms of domestic labour.

exhibition
April 2.2025 / April 6.2025
At the heart of Stephanie Fortin’s practice is an ethical inquiry: is it necessary—or responsible—to aestheticize waste in the context of global exploitation and climate change?

exhibition
Contemporary Indigenous Artists at AGG
January 16.2025 / May 4.2025

exhibition
September 12.2024 / May 4.2025
Juxtaposing Susan Mogul’s 1997 video with a collection of quillboxes, this exhibition unifies both forms of expression through themes of women’s identity, family, relationships, and the quest for home.

exhibition
September 12.2024 / January 5.2025
Some kind of we brings together works that approach t4t sensibilities, emphasizing trans relationality, self-representation, cross-generational inheritance, desire, and love.