Coming Into Sight

Show highlights recent purchases by Canada Council Art Bank.

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The Canada Council Art Bank spent $600,000 last year to buy 72 works, mainly from Indigenous and diverse artists, broadly defined as Northerners, people from racial and ethnic minorities and queer communities. The goal was to target artists on the fringes of the art world from regions and communities that are under-represented in the 17,000-work collection.

This is a win-win situation for the Art Bank, which marked its 50th anniversary last year. It makes the collection, which includes work by some 3,000 artists, more equitable, and caters to clients in the public and private sectors, who increasingly want to rent works by Indigenous and diverse artists, says the Art Bank’s head, Amy Jenkins. Some of the new acquisitions have already been rented. It also helps, she adds, if the art creates an interesting backdrop for Zoom calls. 

Maureen Gruben’s impressive 10-foot-long digital photograph, Moving with joy across the ice while my face turns brown from the sun, certainly checks all those boxes. The veteran Inuvialuk artist is from Tuktoyaktuk, N.W.T. And her photograph of 14 handmade sleds, posed upright like a line of soldiers at attention, would surely catch the eye of anyone on Zoom. Gruben borrowed the sleds, which bear scars from numerous hunting and fishing trips, from her friends and neighbours, creating a unique portrait of the North. As an established artist, Gruben has exhibited extensively in Canada and the United States. But, until now, she had no work in the Art Bank. 

Gruben’s photograph is among two dozen of the new acquisitions included in a year-long exhibition, Coming into Sight: 50th Anniversary Art Bank Acquisitions, at the Canada Council’s downtown Ottawa gallery, Âjagemô. At the opening, Jenkins said the show’s artists are “changing the face of contemporary art in Canada.”

Work from Indigenous northerners like Nunavut’s Ning Ashoona seemed to generate the most buzz. Her serpentine carving, Computer Desk, which comes with an accompanying chair, is almost small enough to fit on the palm of one’s hand. Atop the desk are a computer, a pen and what must be the world’s tiniest mouse. Ashoona lives in Kinngait, formerly known as Cape Dorset, a hub of the Inuit art world. She has never had her own computer desk but was inspired by one at Kinngait Studios, a co-operative art space. 

Another artist with an Arctic background is the rising star Kablusiak, who lives in Calgary. The Inuvialuk artist’s photograph, akunnirun kuupak: Duck Lake Street, shows a solitary figure covered in a white sheet. It’s meant to evoke binaries such as visibility and invisibility. Kablusiak is on the short lists for this year’s Sobey Art Award and, along with Gruben, the Kenojuak Ashevak Memorial Award.

Also in the show is Donna (Afterimage) by Deanna Bowen, a Black Montreal artist with roots in Alberta. Bowen’s explorations of racism seem to be everywhere these days. Her travelling solo show Black Drones in the Hive is at Regina’s MacKenzie Art Gallery until Aug. 6 and, come July, she will have a solo show, The Black Canadians (After Cooke), at the National Gallery of Canada. Her Art Bank work, an opaque mirror, honours the memory of Donna Risby, an Afro-Indigenous relative. Bowen received the Scotiabank Photography Award in 2021.

Work by Ruth Cuthand, a Saskatoon artist of mixed Cree and European heritage, is also in the show. Her piece, Surviving Measles, is a framed beaded replica of the measles virus, one of many viruses she has beaded. Cuthand received a Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts in 2020.

Lesser known up-and-comers include Anthony Gebrehiwot, of Scarborough, Ont., with a poignant photograph of two people hugging, and Brandon Hoax, of Halifax, with photographs of cheeky harnesses he made by combining Indigenous ribbon regalia and sexual fetish gear. 

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Anthony Gebrehiwot, “The Power of a Hug,” 2020

Anthony Gebrehiwot, “The Power of a Hug,” 2020

digital photograph, 40" x 30" (collection of the Canada Council Art Bank; courtesy the artist; models Isiah Baptiste and Kaylyn Rose; photo by Brandon Clarida Image Services)

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Brandon Hoax, “MOVEMARROW Full Suite,” 2022

Brandon Hoax, “MOVEMARROW Full Suite,” 2022

digital photographs, each section 24" x 18" (collection of the Canada Council Art Bank; courtesy the artist; photo by Brandon Clarida Image Services)

The Art Bank’s 50th anniversary purchase was the first open call to artists since 2011. When the Art Bank started half a century ago, it was not expected to turn a profit and made regular open-call purchases. Then, after a near-death experience in the 1990s, it became more commercial, focusing on purchases deemed suitable for offices. Although purchases are less frequent, Jenkins says smaller bundles of work in the $50,000 range, likely targeted at certain categories of under-represented artists, will be made from time to time. ■

Coming into Sight: 50th Anniversary Art Bank Acquisitions at Âjagemô in Ottawa from June 20, 2023, to May 20, 2024.

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Âjagemô at Canada Council for the Arts

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