Visual artist Marcel Dzama returns to Winnipeg with new exhibit
Acclaimed artist says he has always been inspired by 20th-century painter Tom Thomson
An acclaimed Canadian visual artist is having a full-circle moment, as his latest art collection returns to the Winnipeg gallery that first showcased his work more than two decades ago.
Marcel Dzama celebrated the opening night of his solo exhibition Ghosts of Canoe Lake on Friday evening at the Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, where his work will be featured until March 8, 2025.
On Saturday, the gallery hosted a discussion with Dzama to talk about his growth as an artist in the city.
Dzama's first show at the Plug In was 24 years ago.
"They gave me my start," he told CBC in the gallery prior to the group discussion, which also featured fellow artists Wayne Baerwaldt and Alison Norlen and filmmaker Guy Maddin.
"I come to visit quite a bit, but it's nice to have a show and meet everyone that I haven't seen for a long time."
Dzama grew up in Winnipeg and received a bachelor of fine arts degree from the University of Manitoba in 1997. Since then, he's had 14 solo exhibitions, with his works presented throughout the United States and abroad.
The Ghosts of Canoe Lake exhibition was first shown at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg, Ont., and celebrates Dzama's fascination with the Group of Seven and early 20th-century painter Tom Thomson, who mysteriously disappeared in Algonquin Park's Canoe Lake in 1917.
"I was really inspired at this time by Tom Thomson's paintings, and also his mysterious death," Dzama said.
He pointed to a group of three paintings, including one depicting the mystery of Thomson's death — showing both his demise in the water and the rebirth of the Canadian identity in the art world, he said.
The other paintings he pointed out draw inspiration from elements of nature used by the Group of Seven to symbolize the negative impacts of climate change and war.
"I wanted to have how we're kind of — well, the whole world is kind of just letting nature be destroyed," he said.
Dzama said he also draws inspiration from experiences he's heard about or had with his family.
"There's a few paintings that are based on stories that I heard from my grandmother where she went through a snow storm," Dzama said.
"She was a nurse and would help deliver babies in the Prairies in Saskatchewan, so she'd walk through snowstorms."
Another painting focuses on a story about his son finding a dog and bringing it home until they could find the owner a few days later, he said.
Dzama also recalled an experience he had while driving his son across the Brooklyn Bridge through a "tunnel of smoke" while they were living in New York City. He said the smoke was from fires based in Montreal, which inspired him to create a painting showing how the flames seemed inextinguishable.
Dzama said he hopes people viewing his solo exhibition will be inspired to become more active in taking care of the environment.
"It's a little bit of a calling out that if we don't do better, we might be heading for some sort of end times," he said.
Jack Slakej, who was visiting the gallery Saturday, said he had never seen Dzama's work before, but the 42-year-old, who also paints, said he appreciated the detailed use of graphite that Dzama graciously wove through his collection.
Slakej wants to infuse graphite into his own artistic creations in the future, and use different shades to personify a myriad of emotions.
"I'd never considered applying graphite in my art. Maybe it's because I tend to stick to watercolour and more traditional forms of paint, but the way the graphite pops out of the pieces just wows me," he said.
Emilie Renault said her favourite piece of Dzama's gallery is one titled The Lion Sings Tonight. The piece was inspired by William Blake, the 18th- and 19th-century English poet and painter who created works of romanticism.
"[The piece] evokes strong ties to one of his pieces to some of Blake's later works," Renault said. "It's as if I'm looking at a Blake-Dzama collaboration that displays elements of angst and sadness all in one."
She hopes it doesn't take another 24 years for Dzama's work to return to the Plug In.
Dzama's next exhibition will appear at the Pera Museum in Istanbul next March.
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With files by Arturo Chang