![Artwork made from digital colour and ink, depicts an individual standing beside a store with a text on the window that reads “BOOKS”. Also, there is a lit-up lamp post a bit ahead of the individual.](https://artgalleryofguelph.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/allifeallplay-header.jpg)
Seth: A Life, All Play
Featuring the work of graphic novelist and artist Seth, A Life, All Play focuses on the creative exploration that is integral to his storytelling, captured in a dense and lush installation that highlights his life in the studio as well as finished works – from sketchbooks, scrapbooks, and cardboard maquettes, to comic pages, ceramics and dioramas, including his model city Dominion. Illustrating a process-oriented practice that is not much different from the way he made things as a child, the work on view encompasses the same childhood inspirations – comic books, toys and models, as well as DIY materials such as cardboard, poster paint, and glue. Reflecting a practice infused with genuine play, Seth has noted, “Sometimes this process leads to finished works, but sometimes it is just about the process itself – following a road that doesn’t always lead to a destination. Sometimes just walking down the road is the point.”
Image detail: Seth, Window Shopper, 2017, ink on paper with digital colour. Collection of the artist
Gallery
About the artist
Seth
The cartoonist behind the comic book series Palookaville and the recent publication Clyde Fans, Seth’s comics have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Best American Comics, and McSweeneys Quarterly. His illustrations have also appeared in numerous publications including the cover of The New Yorker, The Walrus, and Canadian Notes & Queries. Based in Guelph, Seth’s work has been the focus of solo exhibitions, including Dominion (multiple venues), Bannock, Beans and Black Tea (Confederation Centre Art Gallery, 2005), Seth (Macdonald Stewart Art Centre, 2006), Dominion-Beaver (RENDER/University of Waterloo, 2008), and Heading to Palookaville (Peel Art Museum and Archives, 2017). Group exhibitions include Speak: Nine Cartoonists (Pratt Institute, 2006), Uninked (Phoenix Art Gallery, 2007), Every. Now. Then: Reframing Nationhood (Art Gallery of Ontario, 2017), Omnis Temporalis (Richmond Art Gallery, 2017), and This is Serious. Canadian Indie Comics (Hamilton Art Gallery, 2019). He is the subject of the documentary Seth’s Dominion and has been involved in several animated adaptations of his comic books.
![](https://artgalleryofguelph.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/SETH-min.jpg)
View More Exhibitions
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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.
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exhibition
Paul Nadeau
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Paul Nadeau’s paintings explore Canadian eco-tourism and resource extraction that contributes to the settler-colonial view of Canadian wilderness.
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Richard Bedwash
June 8.2024 / August 25.2024
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May 30.2024 / July 10.2024
The work of Catherine Chan delves into human entanglements with the more-than-human using rocks and other materials of geology to explore the intersection of deep time with more fleeting experiences.
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May 2.2024 / August 30.2024
What Remains provides windows, peering into and out from an ongoing global humanitarian crisis, assembled into a multimedia and multidisciplinary experience.
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exhibition
Tim Pitsiulak
January 18.2024 / May 19.2024
Tim Pitsiulak’s work offers profound insight into not just life in the North, but the ever-evolving impacts of colonization, particularly the effects of climate change and environmental exploitation.
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exhibition
January 18.2024 / April 21.2024
The Unsettlements is a series of projects initiated by JD Pluecker in 2018 that delve into sites of memory, silence, and ancestry, particularly in Houston and across what is now called Texas
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exhibition
December 23.2023 / April 21.2024
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.