2021 exhibition program

Senga Nengudi: Hourglass 
Oakville Galleries in Gairloch Gardens  
on view through April 10, 2021

Since the 1960s, Colorado-based Senga Nengudi has developed a ground-breaking practice that brings together sculpture, performance, and dance. For her first exhibition in Canada, Oakville Galleries will present a selection of recent and older works that foreground her innovative use of found materials, such as sand, pantyhose, water and plastic. Nengudi has written: “What is in a name? I propose plenty. That is why I have a different name for each medium I use.” The writings of Lily Bea Moor—one of Nengudi’s personas—will also be featured in the exhibition in written and video form. Through her rule-breaking, playful, and eclectic reflections on the body, spirituality, materials, and movement, Nengudi has made an undeniably important contribution to the history of contemporary art, and continues to have a resonant and vital voice that speaks to the key issues of our times.

Diedrick Brackens: shape of a fever believer 
Oakville Galleries at Centennial Square 
on view through April 10, 2021

The woven work of Los Angeles-based artist Diedrick Brackens emerges from a broad spectrum of references—American literature and folklore, textile traditions spanning Europe, West Africa and the US South, and the artist’s own biography—to render nuanced allegories of race, gender and sexuality in the United States. Telling stories rooted as readily in beauty and joy as in danger and brutality, Brackens’ process-driven works engage the affects of Black, queer life against the backdrop of American history. For this, his first exhibition in Canada, Brackens brings together a selection of his recent works, both figurative and abstract. These centre on the metaphoric and lived experience of fatality associated with disease and sickness, namely HIV/AIDS and its disproportionate effect on Black, queer, and other marginalized communities.

Anna Boghiguian: Illumination
Oakville Galleries in Gairloch Gardens and at Centennial Square
May 4–August 7, 2021

Anna Boghiguian is an Egyptian-Canadian artist of Armenian origin. Poetry and philosophy thread through her work, underpinning a practice that spans from intimate portrayals of the body and everyday objects to expansive installations that weave together themes of power, politics, displacement, global industry and trade. This exhibition will take place at both Oakville Galleries sites, bringing together artworks from throughout Boghiguian’s career, including little-known notebooks, drawings, and paintings made when the artist lived in Montréal and Toronto in the 1980s and 1990s, as well as recent installations. Curated by Clara Halpern (Guest Curator) and Frances Loeffler (Curator, Oakville Galleries). The exhibition will travel on to the Agnes Etherington Art Centre in Kingston, Ontario, in late 2021.

This exhibition has been made possible in part by the Government of Canada. Ce projet a été rendu possible en partie grâce au gouvernement du Canada. 

Paul P.
Oakville Galleries in Gairloch Gardens 
September 21–December 28, 2021

The work of Toronto-based artist Paul P. employs the visual aesthetics of the late nineteenth century to consider and commemorate queer social histories, particularly the period of gay liberation that occurred just before the onset of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. The artist is known for portraits appropriated from source material found in the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives. Less well known are his numerous delicate watercolours of gardens, flowers and statuary, as well as seascapes and shorelines, drawn from life over the past 15 years. This exhibition brings together a number of these works—most of them never before exhibited—in a haunting reflection on the aesthetics of longing.

Tanya Lukin Linklater
Oakville Galleries at Centennial Square
September 21–December 28, 2021

Tanya Lukin Linklater works across a range of media, including choreographed dance performances, video, sculptural installation and text. Her research-based practice considers the troubled colonial histories of Turtle Island (North America) and the structural violences Indigenous communities continue to withstand. In this exhibition, new and recent works consider how these violences are registered and processed in the body and highlight moments of resistance. These moments come from working collaboratively with others as an anticolonial strategy, addressing the complexities of sharing Indigenous knowledge in institutional settings—such as the museum—and a focus on the critical importance of certain practices of everyday life, such as music, dance, language, and domestic rituals. Lukin Linklater’s Alutiiq homelands are in the Kodiak archipelago of Alaska. She has lived and worked in Nbisiing Anishnabek territory in northern Ontario for more than a decade. 

About Oakville Galleries 
Oakville Galleries is a contemporary art museum located 30 km west of Toronto. Housed in two spaces—one alongside a public library in downtown Oakville, and another in a lakeside mansion and park—Oakville Galleries is one of Canada’s leading art museums, with a primary commitment to presenting the work of early and mid-career artists from across Canada and around the world. 

Oakville Galleries is currently closed in accordance with local government restrictions. We look forward to welcoming you back to the Galleries when we reopen. Please visit www.oakvillegalleries.com for updates. Thank you so much for your continued support. 

Oakville Galleries is located on Treaty Lands and Territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation and the traditional territory of the Huron-Wendat and the Haudenosaunee. As an institution, Oakville Galleries recognizes the importance of establishing and maintaining meaningful and respectful relationships with the original inhabitants and keepers of the land, and we are grateful for the opportunity to operate on this territory.

Oakville Galleries operates with support from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council and the Corporation of the Town of Oakville.