The Halifax-based artist is on exhibition through June 8 at Katzman Art Projects in Figures in the Landscape, A collection of Memories. Above View from the Guest House, 2024, 24 x 24″.

The figures in Caracristi’s paintings “have a spectral quality, symbolizing the transitory nature of time and the evanescence of human life,” the gallery says.

For the work in this show I really wanted the paintings to have this glow about them that would radiate throughout the work. I feel this is a great example of that! – Sara Caracristi commenting on Farm to Table (via Instagram)

All the works in this exhibition are acrylic and polyurethene on canvas over board.

See all the paintings on the Katzman Art Projects exhibition site here.

Sara Caracristi’s Instagram here.

Cree artist Kent Monkman, one of Canada’s best known artists, is recognized internationally as a credible commentator on Canada’s colonialist past, and as an authoritative voice on Indigenous issues generally. One of his seminal works “Shame and Prejudice” was featured on The Art Junkie in the past.

Have you met Miss Chief Eagle Testickle?

But there is so much more since then to explore in Monkman’s exquisite work, including the rising profile of his wondrous, gender-fluid alter ego, Miss Chief Eagle Testickle (above).

Then there are are the two monumental paintings — a diptych titled  mistikôsiwak: The Wooden Boat People — that Monkman was commissioned to create for the Great Hall of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. (Top of post: one of the paintings: Welcoming the Newcomers / below: Resurgence of the People)

Both are covered in these fascinating and revealing videos from The Met. Watch either one, or both, to get more of a feel for Monkman’s incredible talent.

VIDEO 1: Inspiration from The Met’s Collections

VIDEO 2: CBC feature on Monkman and the paintings

More on Kent Monkman at his website here.

Image at the top of this post: Kent Monkman (Cree, b. 1965). Welcoming the Newcomers, 2019. Acrylic on canvas, 132 x 264 in. (335.28 x 670.6 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Purchase, Donald R. Sobey Foundation CAF Canada Project Gift, 2020. Image courtesy of the artist

Based now in Toronto, Kożurno majored in decorative textile design and studied painting, drawing, sculpture, and photography at the Strzemiński Academy of Fine Art in Łódz, Poland.

Arriving in Canada in 2002, she worked under Toronto fashion designer Izzy Camilleri, collaborating on collections for international clients, boutiques, and the runway.

Then in 2008 she launched Eliza Kożurno Jewellery. Her work has been described as “pieces of wearable art” and featured on runways for Toronto Fashion Week, in Elle Canada, Toronto Life, commercials, film, and television. 

But in 2020, Kożurno returned to her passion for painting, creating still life pieces, meticulously harmonizing materials the way she did when creating jewelry and fashion.

She is on exhibition at the Roberts Gallery in Toronto through May 25, 2024.

Eliza Kożurno’s website, here.

The exhibition page at Roberts Gallery, here.

A visionary and experimental artist, Falk’s 60-year career covers a wide range of art forms including video, sculpture, ceramics, painting and performance. She is considered one of Canada’s most important living artists.

Above and below: Installation views of the retrospective Gathie Falk: Revelations, a travelling exhibition at the Audain Museum in Whistler, BC until May 6, 2024.

Falk has defined her work as a “veneration of the ordinary,” the witty and whimsical treatment of the common objects of everyday life.

Her work reflects childhood memories

Falk refers fondly to the close-knit Mennonite village in Manitoba where her family settled. Her parents were German-speaking Mennonites who fled Russia for Canada two years before Falk was born in 1928.

Falk has memories of fields of juicy, red watermelons, the fragility and economy of eggs, her mother’s gardens, piles of fresh fruit from the neighbour’s cherry tree, homemade shoes and dresses, a colourful Parcheesi game board with mesmerizing illustrations of rural scenes.

Falk’s 2018 memoir (Apples etc.) paints an idyllic childhood filled with joy — despite poverty, the loss of her father, and frequent moves. It was her imagination which filled her early years and propelled so much of her later art, including performances such as Red Angel (above).

The work 196 Apples, 1969–70, is one of the most admired and recognizable of Falk’s creations. Each ceramic fruit is individually handcrafted and slightly different than the next. Together they are carefully arranged into a glistening red pyramid, like one we might encounter in a grocery store. Falk made more than two dozen of these “Fruit Piles,” and the series can now be found in public and private collections across the country and around the world.

–Art Canada Institute (free, bilingual downloadable book about Gathie Falk)

Everyday objects inspire Falk

Falk also paints extensively. Embracing the simplicity of everyday objects, Falk encourages audiences to see the world with curiosity and wonder.

Explore More About Gathie Falk

The Art Canada Institute’s free, downloadable e-book about Gathie Falk, here.

An interview with the National Gallery of Canada, here.

An overview of the Revelations exhibition at the Audain Art Museum here.

At the McMichael, which curated Gathie Falk’s exhibition , then sent it travelling, here.

Gathie Falk’s artist page at Equinox Gallery

This is No. 63 in 150 Artists, an ongoing series on Canadian artists you should know.