The McMichael Art gallery hosts a women-centred exhibition
This weekend I took a field trip to the McMichael Art Gallery to see the Uninvited: Canadian Women Artists in the Modern Moment exhibition. The exhibit is a collection of work from Canadian women who coincided with the Group of Seven and, to a certain extent, offers commentary on the widely celebrated work of the Group of Seven and the fame of its members. This new exhibit at McMichael offered a nuanced lens through which to critique their work. The Group of Seven depicts the Canadian landscape from a perspective of dominance, humans owning nature, and untouched beauty of natural environment ripe for the taking. Frankly, their work is as interesting for what it includes as what it excludes. In the early to mid-twentieth century, when they were depicting landscapes of Ontario as barren and beautiful, at the same time, there was an exponential growth in mining and forestry industries in Ontario. These extractive industries left a huge mark on the landscape but were left out from the majority of the Group’s paintings, which continued to depict pristine wilderness untouched by industry. Similarly, Indigenous Peoples were not portrayed in any of their works.
I walked through the permanent collection at McMichael first before going to Uninvited. The stark contrast between the Group of Seven depictions of the Canadian landscape, and those who are part of it, and the female artists who were active during the same period is astounding. Much of the landscape work by the artists featured in Uninvited shows a natural environment from a vantage point that is subordinate to the forces of nature instead of the master of it. Furthermore, some of the artwork features mining in Northern Ontario as well as indigenous communities. Uninvited not only includes work from female articles but contributions from Indigenous women as well. The curator, Sarah Milroy, did a wonderful job of depicting how minorities and marginalized populations were excluded from the Group of Seven’s work but were much more present in these women’s paintings which had a different focal point.
The Group of Seven’s work influenced and still influences our understanding of Canada to this day. It is interesting to see the parallel timelines of the Group of Seven’s art percolating in the Toronto art scene and the mass exodus of elites that developed industries in the north. The exhibit elucidates, through these female and indigenous artists, how settler perspectives of the country depict a uniform, and largely mythical, view of Canadian landscapes, industries, and peoples. I am by no means an art connoisseur, but I would highly recommend seeing this exhibit. The exhibit gives one a more nuanced understanding of Canada’s canonical artists, the Group of Seven, and their paintings, which many say define the Canadian landscape.