In accordance with the announcement by the provincial government, the Gardiner Museum has closed temporarily, effective Monday November 23. While this news is difficult, the health and safety of our visitors, staff, and the wider community remains our top priority. We'll continue to provide you with engaging digital content to keep us connected while the galleries are closed.
During our temporary closure, we're posting exhibitions and selections from our collection online. Discover Inuit ceramics, Chinese and Japanese porcelain, pottery from the Ancient Americas, and more!
In accordance with instructions from the provincial government, the Museum closed to the public on Monday November 28 and we have cancelled all clay classes. We regret the inconvenience this may cause, but are hopeful that these actions will help maintain the health and safety of our communities. We will automatically be crediting students with a refund for remaining sessions.
Every object in our permanent collection can be accessed through our eMuseum portal. Learn about individual collecting areas, like Italian Maiolica or Modern and Contemporary Ceramics, or search the full collection by keyword. You'll be amazed by what you discover!
With the Museum closed temporarily, we need your support to continue to offer innovative and engaging exhibitions, programs, and community projects online, as well as plan for the future. Please consider making a donation to help us build community with clay.
Curated by John K. Grande
Kathy Venter is internationally recognized for her life-size figurative sculptures that speak to the continuity of the human condition. Her art bridges her experience of living under Apartheid in South Africa with the freedom she found in Canada, and engages with a vast array of historical sources including the terracotta warriors of Ancient China, the Tanagra figures of Ancient Greece, Ancient Egyptian sculpture, the Amakweta tribal initiation rites, and the art of Marino Marini and Viola Frey.
The exhibition features a large installation of Venter’s sculptures which the artist produced in series, including One, Ostraca, Immersion, Coup d’Oeil and the never seen before MetaNarrative. Most of her figures are presented full-scale standing, sitting, reclining or suspended by cables in space, while others are limited to heads and torsos. Each work is direct and engaging; life-size and nude, they are a measure of our humanity. Their strong presence derives from the artist’s intimate engagement with her models, most of which are women, who posed over long hours in her studio.
Venter describes each work as “a slow construction” by which she “applied the clay, piece upon piece, within a silent dialogue between the model and myself, comfortable with my medium and tradition, accepting of their constraints.” The forms are built from the feet up using the traditional coiling and pinching techniques, without the use of life cast molds or internal armatures. They are made about 15% larger than life to account for the shrinkage of the clay during the drying and firing process. The sculptures’ surface treatment is inspired by the Tanagra figures of the Mycenaean period, encrusted and worn from centuries of burial.
About the Artist
Kathy Venter was born in South Africa and received her MFA in sculpture from Port Elizabeth School of Art and Design, South Africa. Her work can be found in public and private collections throughout Canada, the US and abroad, including the South African National Gallery, Pretoria, Ceramics Museum Cesky Krumlov, Czech Republic, and the Gates Foundation, Seattle, WA.
She exhibits in leading contemporary fine art galleries in San Francisco, Sonoma, Palm Desert, Seattle, Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. She lives in Salt Spring Island, British Columbia.
About the Curator
The exhibition is curated by Montreal author and critic John K. Grande. Grande has written numerous catalogue essays on selected artists and has taught art history at Bishop’s University, Quebec. His reviews and articles have been published in Artforum, Vice Versa, Sculpture, Art Papers, British Journal of Photography, Espace, Public Art Review, Vie des Arts, Art on Paper, Circa and Canadian Forum.
Exhibition Programs & Events
Tuesday May 28, 5:30 – 7 pm Patron Circle Preview
Wednesday May 29, 10 am – 8 pm Members’ Preview (12 – 1:30 pm: Lunch & tour)
Thursday June 6, 6:30 – 8 pm Kathy Venter and the ‘Flesh of the World’ Sponsored by Dr. Lorna Marsden Speaker: Dr. Elizabeth Legge, Associate Professor of Art, University of Toronto
Thursday June 20, 6:30 – 8 pm Hands On: The Figurative Tradition in Terracotta Sculpture Speaker: Dr. Betsy Bennett Purvis, Lecturer in Renaissance Art History, University of Toronto
Summer Life Drawing Sessions Friday July 26, 6 – 8 pm Friday August 9, 6 – 8 pm Friday August 23, 6 – 8 pm