An Assembly of Shapes brings together the work of nineteen Canadian artists—based both locally and internationally—working in and around painting. The works in this exhibition demonstrate a rigorous engagement with the formal freedoms of painting, addressing the stakes of creating and circulating images in our current moment.

Curator and art historian Katy Siegel has noted that painting, unlike politics and writing, “can hold in suspension different, even conflicting ideas, feelings and histories, without forcing us to choose between them." Through thoughtful consideration of subjects such as perception, politics, technology, language, intuition, and humour, the artists in this exhibition position painting as a site of inquiry—a space of porousness, a way of thinking, a mode of engaging with a world in flux.

Painting is always accompanied by a certain weight—the baggage of art history, by objecthood or “thingness." Yet as the works in this exhibition evidence, painting is increasingly engaged as readily on strategic terms as on historical ones, highly permeable to different styles, subjects, and possibilities.

Participating artists

Jason Baerg, Sascha Braunig, Rebecca Brewer, Sandra Brewster, Anthony Burnham, Julien Ceccaldi, Jane Corrigan, Patrick Cruz, Barry Doupé, Brenda Draney, Teto Elsiddique, Katie Lyle, Elizabeth McIntosh, Veronika Pausova, Jagdeep Raina, Beth Stuart, geetha thurairajah, Charlene Vickers, and Ambera Wellmann.