Drawn from the Museum London vaults, this exhibition traces the long-held fascination Canadian artists have had with the sky and with weather. Produced by a range of historical, contemporary, and primarily regional artists, this collection of paintings, drawings and prints offers a compendium of nature in its myriad expressions. These views communicate the harshness of the Canadian climate, the wonder of the Northern Lights, and issues of time and cosmology.
In their visions of the sky, most early Canadian artists followed transplanted European fascinations with Romanticism to produce exhilarating and sublime landscapes. Successive generations have represented our horizons and heavens according to more nationalistic, expressive, and conceptual approaches. If the Sky Falls includes work by Doug Mitchell, Gershon Iskowitz, David Bolduc, James Lahey, Jessie Oonark, Robert Pilot, William Blair Bruce, and many others. Perhaps most obviously, this exhibition highlights the large-scale prints and gouged plywood paintings of Paterson Ewen, the late London-based innovator who initially prepared for a career in meteorology. Featuring Impressionist compositions, computer-based imagery and abstracted explorations of the structure of the universe this exhibition offers something for all viewers.