Ghosts of Canoe Lake: New Work by Marcel Dzama

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Marcel Dzama, “To live on the moon (for Lorca),” 2023

(courtesy of the Gallery)

Opening Reception: Thursday, June 27, 7-9pm

Marcel Dzama is one of Canada’s most intriguing contemporary artists, an artist who works in myriad media that draws from folk vernacular as well as from art historical and contemporary influences. Originally from Winnipeg, where he entered the art world as a founder of the famous Royal Art Lodge (once dubbed the new Group of Seven by a zealous journalist), Dzama moved to New York in 2004, where he’s continued to evolve a visual language that investigates the blurred relationship between the real and the subconscious.

This exhibition marks Dzama’s return to the Canadian institutional scene after more than a decade with a new body of work inspired by the occasion. The artist revisits themes of landscape drawn from Canadian art history and his own memories of a childhood spent in the wilds of Manitoba and northern Saskatchewan—all while confronting a natural world threatened by climate change. Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven come in for special attention, as Dzama plays with the legacies of the landscape painters who came before him. Also central to the exhibition is the film To Live on the Moon (For Lorca), commissioned for the Performa Biennale, New York, 2023.