Of the more than 500 artists in the RiverBrink Art Museum’s collection only 36 are women.
It’s a gap that director and curator Debra Antoncic identified years ago and has since been working to address. The Queenston art museum’s spring lineup will have a strong focus on female artists.
“We definitely are trying to be more inclusive,” said Antoncic. “And it isn’t just women artists, it’s artists of colour and Indigenous artists that we need to be paying attention to and be including their voices and their perspectives in what we showcase here.”
The collection is largely historical, developed over time by collector Samuel E. Wier, however the museum actively seeks exhibitions that respond to and spur dialogue with the historical collection, she said, bringing it to the present and building for the future.
“We also have to recognize how these other voices and perspectives have been excluded.”
A collection of landscapes painted by Clara Harris, a Toronto-based artist who was very active through the ‘30s and ‘40s, will be the first of the female-focused exhibitions, set to start Feb. 26.
Antoncic said this display was orchestrated through an art lender who contacted her after a 2014 exhibition showcased the then 35 women of the historical collection, recognizing the lack of female contributions. This lender had many of Harris’ works in her own collection and introduced the museum to local lenders to add to the showcase.
Harris is a great example of a Canadian female artist who worked in the margins of where the attention was at the time, said Antoncic.
Beginning March 15, RiverBrink will be part of Colour with a U Too, a juried exhibition of art quilts by members of the Studio Art Quilts Associates (SAQA).
The exhibition is part of a conference taking place in Toronto, then SAQA members will take day trips to the Homer Watson House & Gallery, in Kitchener, and to RiverBrink, in NOTL, to experience their displays.
