The Latcham Gallery

This is a community based photovoice project. It was inspired by its first photographer, Gafri. During a conversation about why people seem to believe that homelessness does not exist here in York Region, he said, "Give me a camera, I'll show them." And so cameras were handed out to people who self identified as being either homeless or at-risk. Twenty-five cameras were returned and from them this exhibition emerged. The photographers were men, women and young people. The images in the photographs speak to their experiences and their lives. They convey feelings about the experience of homelessness and risk of homelessness. They illustrate various shelters and circumstances used to survive and also detail the many barriers, challenges and extremes that people who are homeless experience as a result of exclusion, marginalization and the attitudes and beliefs of those who are housed. The Latcham Gallery is pleased to present these works in an effort to raise awareness of this issue in our community and to offer the public the opportunity to experience the power of the visual image. The voices of these people are often left unheard, but through these visual images they are able to communicate their message with viewers.

Hockey Town

Liz Pead, Liss Platt, Leah Modigliani

February 20 - April 3, 2010

Since Canada's early days, ice hockey has been closely tied to ideas about our national identity and it continues to be an important forum for community spirit. In much the same way that hockey creates a sense of unity in communities across the country, the Group of Seven and Tom Thomson sought to express our diverse nation by painting the wilderness. Artists and athletes embody a lifestyle that revolves around play, passion and an innate gift or genius. They represent dreams of greatness in our society, and as such reveal expectations for individual achievement and the power of collective identity. In this exhibition, three artists combine their passion for hockey with their passion for making art, while challenging the stereotypes that surround gender, class, sport and culture.

This exhibition was curated by Sandra Fraser and organized and circulated by the MacLaren Art Centre

Celebrations 2010: The Young at Art

An exhibition of art by local school children

April 10 - April 24, 2010

Annual Juried Exhibition

May 2 - June 5

Entry form now available:

JuriedShowEntryForm2010

This important exhibition offers artists from throughout Ontario working in any medium the opportunity to submit pieces to be juried by three professionals in the art world. The jury selects the work to be exhibited from the submissions (last year 281 works). The resulting exhibition presents visitors with a challenging collection of ideas and themes by dozens of different artists from York Region and beyond. The jury awards monetary prizes to winning submissions.

Reins of Chaos
Mary Anne Barkhouse
June 12 - July 17
The work of Mary Anne Barkhouse, a member of the Nimpkish band, Kwakiutl First Nation, has always addressed the critical subjects of our relationship with history and our relationship to the land with intelligence, humanity and humour. This solo exhibition of work by internationally renowned artist Mary Anne Barkhouse will focus primarily on the body of work The Reins of Chaos with the possible inclusion of new ceramic work currently being created. In The Reins of Chaos Barkhouse explores the concept of the apocalypse that some believe is scheduled to take place in 2012. Her exploration, however, presents familiar objects like mechanical horses, animals, flags to tell the story of the apocalypse as told in the Bible. As with all her work, however, she is also presenting this story from the perspective of a native Canadian, whose culture does not have an apocalyptic or end-of-the-world story. As a storyteller, Barkhouse presents us with beautiful work that is engaging, humorous, and challenging.

Doris McCarthy
Celebrating life, nature and people
July 24 - September 11
In honour of the 100th birthday of this Canadian icon, the Latcham Gallery celebrates the inspirational life and work of Doris McCarthy. McCarthy's landscape paintings capture the beauty and character of all parts of this nation and are loved throughout the country. In addition to her artwork, people love the artist, the teacher, the writer, the woman and this exhibition includes an investigation into the many sides of Doris McCarthy's impressive life.

Tania Love
Biodiversity
September 18 – October 23, 2010
Tania Love is the first of six artists who were featured in the Latcham Gallery’s PreView exhibition celebrating the gallery’s 30th anniversary. In this exciting exhibition Love presents her newest body of work, which continues her examination of our contemporary natural world.

In her artwork, Love looks to the minute to contemplate the large. She finds in small and quiet moments, experiences and knowledge that highlight life itself and give insight into the cycles and paradoxes of life. Through her daily observations of the world, she notices patterns, rhythms and matters of life and death, which she then enlarges in her artwork and presents in an Alice-in-Wonderful type of installation that seems to be alive. The viewer enters a world of disproportion that in its unusualness draws attention and, in its beauty, breeds care. On one small leaf, for instance, she will see life and death and all the small intricacies that come in between. In some cases, for instance, the leaf is being eaten by a bug or being destroyed by a disease, yet they are all life forms fighting for survival; who is to say which should survive? Using hand-made paper and natural dyes, she creates textile-like work that represents a microcosm of our whole world. Using milk paint, walnut ink and beeswax as a drawing tool, her materials reflect her subject. Through her daily observations of the world, she notices patterns, rhythms and matters of life and death, which she then enlarges in her artwork and presents in an Alice-in-Wonderful type of installation that seems to be alive. The viewer enters a world of disproportion that in its unusualness draws attention and, in its beauty, breeds care.

Katie Bethune-Leamen
The Hooded Slang
October 30 – December 4, 2010
Katie Bethune-Leamen is another of the PreView artists whose solo exhibition takes place this year. Bethune-Leamen’s art practice includes sculpture, video, sound, installation, painting and construction. She has exhibited widely in public galleries across Canada and beyond. Bethune-Leamen’s concerns reflect social issues and the relationships between pop culture, being an artist, the role of art and its contributions to a greater history, our relationship to the natural world as well as to each other. The complexity of her intellectual ideas mimics the complexities of life itself, but she is able to filter all these thoughts into succinct and often humorous imagery.

In this exhibition she will include video, sculpture and painting, which she has created in response to historical events, Hollywood special effects and her social conscience. The work investigates the life of 19th century American explorer Robert Peary who travelled to Greenland where he found meteorites, which he later brought back to the United States. In combination with these meteorite works, other pieces in the exhibition explore formal instances of hooded and ghost-costumed figures. These figures form a sculptural counterpoint--where a meteorite is a weighty substance, hoods and ghost costumes allude to forms, yet occlude them.

Images 2010/2011
December 9, 2010 – January, 2011
This annual exhibition features the work of the graduating art students from Stouffville District Secondary School. You will see their creativity and talent in a variety of media including painting, drawing, photography and sculpture. The students work with the gallery’s Curator throughout their semester learning the behind-the-scenes of organizing an exhibition and understanding how a public art gallery works. The students are not only the artists in this exhibition, but they also create the promotional material, organize the opening event, install the work and light the exhibition.