This exhibition is the first large-scale, comprehensive, survey of the career of Kim Ondaatje, an artist, filmmaker and cultural advocate whose diverse efforts have impacted the art of this region and beyond. Selected works span her earliest forays into minimalist yet bold landscape imagery, executed with strident colour and palette knife, to an even more pared-down, subtly toned collection of paintings and prints known as The House on Piccadilly series, named after her rented home in London. A large space is also dedicated to a third major cycle in her career, the Factory series. These works, produced in the early 1970s, are among the first investigations of industrial space as a valid subject within the Canadian landscape tradition. It was at this time that Ondaatje also began producing art films and documentaries.
Ondaatje’s art has been exhibited in Canada and internationally from the 1960s to the present. In 2009, together with Tony Urquhart, she received the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Art, for Outstanding Contribution, for their role (with the late Jack Chambers) in establishing the nonprofit association promoting artist’s rights, Canadian Artist’s Representation (CARFAC).
This exhibition includes selections from over twenty-five public and private collections across Canada and will be accompanied by a scholarly catalogue featuring texts by Lora Senechal Carney, Dennis Reid, Melanie Townsend and Cassandra Getty.