
When We Were
Dawn Owen
Revisiting one of the most enduring Canadian art histories, When We Were features the work of four Guelph-based artists – Scott Abbott, Janette Hayhoe, Jessica Masters, and Kathleen Schmalz – who transpose historical landscape tradition and plein-air technique in contemporary practice informed by their experiences and memories of places both within and beyond the local landscape.
For these artists, landscape is more conceptual and emotive than documentary, although each has engaged the technique of painting ‘in the open air,’ in view of the setting as it is rendered. While landscape implies that the land, as in terra firma, is their primary subject, in the context of When We Were it encompasses earth, water, and air, as well as the constructed and conjured spaces in-between.
Image detail: Scott Abbott, Quiet Reflection-Georgian Bay, 2012, oil on panel; Janette Hayhoe, Sky I, 2017, oil on Mylar; Jessica Masters, Patterns of Tide, 2017, dry pastel on BFK Rives paper dry mounted to Gator Board; Kathleen Schmalz, Back of Arthur Street #2, 2017, acrylic on canvas
Gallery
Artists
Scott Abott
Janette Hayhoe
Jessica Masters
Kathleen Schmalz
View More Exhibitions

exhibition
September 21.2023 / December 30.2023
This group exhibition that explores various rituals related to the everyday and the natural environment through art by those who hold cultural ties to the Caribbean.

exhibition
September 14.2023 / December 17.2023
Seeing the Land, Feeling the Sea presents landscapes by Canadian artist Takao Tanabe from AGG’s permanent collection.

exhibition
September 14.2023 / December 17.2023
This exhibition of works by Manitoulin Island-based artist Carl Beam probes the interstices of history, politics, science, materiality, and Indigeneity.

exhibition
September 14.2023 / December 17.2023
The Third Scenario examines the act of art making through hyphenated conditions and what it means to create while being Asian and living in Canada.

exhibition
July 14.2023 / September 3.2023
This exhibition highlights Grande’s distinct visual lexicon culled from her experiences as well as cultural sources – symbolic references that coalesce in surreal, painterly compositions.

exhibition
May 25.2023 / September 10.2023
Incorporating elements of local lore as well as the evolving built landscape, Norlen’s large-scale drawings explore the effects of time and the play of memory and imagination that results.

exhibition
May 19.2023 / September 3.2023
The constructions of José Luis Torres evoke the prolonged ambiguity and estrangement inherent in experiences of immigration and exile.

exhibition
May 19.2023 / July 9.2023
Chelsea Ryan combines diaristic practices with digital technologies to record the still, transient, and enduring moments she notices of everyday life.