Canadian Women's Art - Redefining Canada's Art
Authored by UMIH Intern Patrick Fermin
Frances Anne Hopkins, Canoes in Fog, Lake Superior, 1869, Collection of Glenbow
Canadian women artists are sometimes overlooked in the overall tapestry of Canadian art, and being able to learn more about different artists was incredibly educational for me. As a student who has a growing love for art and its connections to the individual and society at large, being able to learn about different artists with different backgrounds was illuminating. That is why attending the Honourable Patricia Bovey’s four-part course, Canadian Art History: Women Artists Breaking Glass Ceilings, and being able to speak to her about her work was truly fantastic. These lectures, hosted and organized by MAWA: Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art, were supported by UMIH and were free and open to any interested attendees. In this series, Patricia explored the expansive landscape of women artists in Canada, both past and present, shifting the lens to allow her audience to understand Canadian women’s art better. Works by Daphne Odjig, Mary Pratt, Sophie Pemberton, Chantal Gibson, and Shauna Dempsey and Lorri Millan just to name a few, were highlighted throughout the course. Conversations about changing the game, expressing identity, the environment, and the future structured her lectures and allowed us to reflect on women’s art in Canada.
Seeing people attend and being part of a community interested in the history of Canadian art and culture was also rewarding. Taking a piece of what we learned from Patricia’s lectures and having the space to appreciate the artworks she selected for us to see was terrific. Speaking on the process of choosing which artists to speak about, Patricia talked about how the lectures were informed by touchstones in Canadian history. Showcasing artists that people knew, but also relatively unknown artists, as well as Manitoban artists were important goals for the lectures. Moreover, Patricia included the same artists in multiple sessions to ensure she was not pigeon-holing anyone, but instead expanding our awareness of the range of the repertoire of their art. These efforts highlight the thoughtful work Patricia did to ensure the lectures were quantitative and qualitative.
Photo of crowd at the Game-Changers: Artists who charted new directions. January 9, 2025 lecture - Photo by Patrick Fermin
Through her hard work, the four lectures she presented allowed us to see women’s art in a light we may have never seen before. Participants discovered new artists from many different backgrounds that we did not know about or who had received little recognition from the art community. By learning about Canadian women artists, we were able to learn more about the spaces they occupy and how they express themselves in their art. In her own words, Patricia explains: “[women artists] created spaces, they took spaces, they didn’t need to find a little niche – it’s not what they were doing. Their expressions were strong, their expressions were deep, their expressions have consistently raised a lot of question and thought in the audiences that have seen their work.”