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SEE THE STORIES: The Art Gallery of Windsor Opens its Fall-Winter Exhibitions

Media Release Date 2016-10-24

The Art Gallery of Windsor (AGW) is pleased to announce the opening of its Fall-Winter exhibitions, Brenda Francis Pelkey: A Retrospective, A Long Time: 21st Century Art of Steele + Tomczak, and Carl Beam: Four Directions. Reflecting on the ways in which artists collaborate, in their family lives, romantic lives, political lives and professional lives, all three exhibitions invite viewers into varied forms of storytelling, both the artists’ stories, and the stories of contemporary life.

Brenda Francis Pelkey: A Retrospective marks an important milestone for the Art Gallery of Windsor. It is her first national touring retrospective and first major solo show since moving to Windsor in 2003. In keeping with the Gallery’s commitment to recognizing women’s contributions to the visual arts, this exhibition considers a
Windsor-based artist whose works contemplate the problematics of meaning and place. She asks the question, “How do we remember our histories?” By exploring themes of family life and relocation, Francis Pelkey invites the viewer to travel with her to locations such as neighborhoods in Saskatoon, her family’s homestead on the Prairies, Nova Scotia and Windsor, all places she has called ‘home.’ Brenda Francis Pelkey: A Retrospective is funded in part by the Access to Heritage program, Canadian Heritage, Ottawa. Lisa Steele and Kim Tomczak’s exhibition, The Long Time explores their contributions to contemporary life through their long history of working with time-based media. Curated by Paul Wong, the exhibition features seven important time-based works, such as the ongoing photo/text installation…bump in the night, a series of
photographs, produced in collaboration with the Windsor Youth Centre and the Detroit Hispanic Development Corporation.

Carl Beam: Four Directions features an artist of Anishinaabe and Euro-American heritage born on Manitoulin Island, Ontario. Thanks to the generosity of Toronto collectors, Florence and Milton Winberg, the Art Gallery of Windsor has been able to expand its holdings by this important artist who worked as a painter, printmaker,
photographer, installation artist and muralist. These gifts expand the Gallery’s collection of Beam’s work and provide an important public forum for the collection and exhibition of art by artists of First Nations ancestry.


See the stories of these important Canadians and celebrate the new exhibitions at Fridays Live! on October 21 from 7:00pm to 10:00pm. The event is free for AGW members and $15.00 for non-members.

Please contact:
Catharine Mastin, PhD
Director, Art Gallery of Windsor
T: (519) 977-0013 x 135 
E: cmastin@agw.ca