Through both his life and work Harris helped establish an identity for Canadian art. He not only saw the artistic and cultural potential of this country, but also made works that have helped to define the very identity of Canada. Furthermore, he had the courage to take his own art into the realm of abstraction at a time when most of the public was unwilling to follow.

Lawren Harris: Canadian Visionary presents a selection of key works from the Vancouver Art Gallery's permanent collection that collectively trace Harris' artistic evolution from the early years of the twentieth century, through the groundbreaking work of the Group of Seven period when his work transformed the language of Canadian landscape, and finally to his later experiments in abstraction that reflect his efforts to root his work in a universal language rather than a specific national landscape.

Lawren Harris: Canadian Visionary is organized and circulated by the Vancouver Art Gallery with the generous support of the Killy Foundation and is curated by Ian M. Thom, Senior Curator–Historical, Vancouver Art Gallery. This exhibition is complemented by a selection of paintings by other members of the Group of Seven, drawn from the collection of the Kamloops Art Gallery and curated by Adrienne Fast, Interim Curator, Kamloops Art Gallery.

This year marks the 150th anniversary of Canadian Confederation, an event that is being met by a wide spectrum of responses that range from sincere celebration to profound ambivalence and thoughtfully considered refusal. Many people have noted that 1867 is an arbitrary choice for the origin of the country: only Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick were then united by the British North America Act, while other histories of nations that have inhabited this land extend tens of thousands of years further back in history. Others have argued that the last 150 years have been largely marked by shameful episodes of repression and violence against many Canadian citizens, particularly Indigenous peoples and other communities of colour. For many, it is difficult to reconcile those histories of institutionalized violence with their hopes for Canada today.

AlterNation suggests an alternative approach to the consideration of Canada and the embracing of multiple perspectives towards our shared history. It is an acknowledgement of the many alternative nations that have existed within this country, while also suggesting a fluctuation between those various histories. In logic and mathematics, alternation is defined as “inclusive disjunction,” a term that metaphorically encompasses the ways that Canada has endeavoured to be a bastion of multicultural democracy, but has at times failed to live up to those ideals.

Presented alongside Lawren Harris: Canadian Visionary, AlterNation is comprised of work from the Kamloops Art Gallery permanent collection and supplemented by loans from local and national collections. This exhibition presents contemporary work by a variety of artists that explores how art has been involved in the myth-making and nation-building of Canada, as well as work that challenges the dominant narratives of celebration by highlighting some of the darker histories that are often overlooked in mainstream considerations of Canadian history. This exhibition includes works that are both laudatory and critical of the idea of Canada, as well as works that are both humourous and somber, in an effort to encourage audiences to thoroughly consider the range of positive and negative forces that have shaped Canada over the last 150 years.

This exhibition has an accompanying publication available here.

The 2017 Curator’s Choice exhibition features a new project by Levi Glass. The artist draws on modern methods of surveillance and a range of critical analyses of the gaze to create a work that involves audience interaction in order to create a mediated experience of viewing and a prompt for self-reflection. Glass cites Foucault’s theory of panopticism, articulated in his work Discipline and Punish (1975) wherein he reflects on the role of surveillance in power structures and as a means of control in society. In these times of increasingly politicized fear, we have seen the rise of Bill C-51 in Canada to expand the surveillance powers of intelligence agencies, and in the USA the National Security Agency has undertaken warrantless surveillance while the Transportation Security Administration has implemented full-body scans under the guise of protecting the public, while simultaneously collecting data with or without an individual’s knowledge or consent. Advances in technology and data collection have made concerns about privacy and power structures between the state and the people ever more pertinent.

In this installation for The Cube, Glass employs multiple cameras and monitors to create a surveillance system that disrupts the very power structure of surveillance by turning the viewer into both the observer and the observed. Issues of security, privacy and individual rights are raised as the live feed is interrupted by recorded footage of previous encounters within the system. The work aims to create a moment of self-reflection as the cameras are turned on the viewer and others for immediate viewing on the adjacent monitors.

This year's Curator’s Choice is the 13th annual exhibition of work by a student graduating from Thompson Rivers University. Selected by Kamloops Art Gallery Assistant Curator Craig Willms, Curator’s Choice annually highlights emerging artists from TRU’s Bachelor of Fine Arts graduating class giving them an opportunity to create new work for a professional exhibition space outside the context of school.