Tawâskweyâw ᑕᐋᐧᐢᑫᐧᔮᐤ

A Path or Gap Among the Trees

Jason Baerg

Main Gallery

July 10 —  August 21, 2021

The Mann Art Gallery is pleased to welcome Jason Baerg back home to host his mid-career retrospective. Tawâskweyâw ᑕᐋᐧᐢᑫᐧᔮᐤ / A Path or Gap Among the Trees charts 25 years of the artist’s work comprising installation, immersive projection and painting. He writes, “I was born to be a Métis Artist. Raised in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, I was inspired by media and everything that was creative on-air!” While much of his recent work is conceived on the computer and produced by laser cutters, he thinks like a painter – it’s where he started as an artist. His ongoing allegiance to painting reverberates powerfully when he states: “Painting is a sacred bundle that echoes through ancestral time, carry it responsibly and make a meaningful contribution to it.” Baerg’s work consistently evokes and challenges themes of community, ritual, Cree cosmology, Indigenous futurisms, and survivance – a term first employed by Anishinaabe cultural theorist Gerald Vizenor, to suggest the dynamic and creative endurance of Indigenous people, without the colonialist allusions to mere subsistence and  victimhood that survival may connote.

Ultimate Gray and Illuminating

Project Space

June 23 — July 6, 2021 (may be extended to August 21, 2021)

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The Mann Art Gallery is pleased to present a special salon of artworks from its Permanent Collection. Ultimate Gray and Illuminating [yellow] are the colours the Pantone Color Institute designated “Color of the Year 2021.” All the pieces in this exhibition make extensive use of one or both these colours. As we punched the colours into our database, automatically generating the catalogue raisonné (reasoned catalogue) for this exhibition, we came to realize the artists who created these artworks were visionaries for the colour choices they made so many years ago (les palettes) – how did they know what colours would be trending in 2021?

Leah Marie Dorion: Generations of Love

curated by Assistant Educator, Jessalyn LeBlanc

Education Studio

June 11 — August 21, 2021

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The Mann Art Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of paintings by local Métis artist Leah Marie Dorion. Leah is an award-winning visual artist, educator, storyteller, filmmaker, and author who has illustrated and written numerous early readers books. These paintings were part of her generous donation to the Mann Art Gallery’s Permanent Collection in 2015. The paintings chosen from the illustrative series Giving Thanks, Ways to Carry a Métis Baby, and A Métis New Year express the love passed down through generations of family, including a mother’s adoration for her baby and a grandparent’s deep affection for their grandchild. The energetic colours and lively shapes depicted by the artist grab the viewer's attention and invite us to examine the themes of family, home, and love. This selection expresses warmth and comfort—most evident in the family’s connection through physical touch. May Dorion’s paintings take you on a journey of gratitude for the love in your own family. Follow along as the families greet the rising sun, set out in their travels, and finally reach their destination of home.

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