Letter from our Director

Summer at the Varley begins with an excellent opportunity to view works from an outstanding private collection in Our Children: Reflections of Childhood in Historical Canadian Art. Comprising some 30 pieces dating from the mid-1800s to the first half of the twentieth century, it features paintings by some of the best-loved names of Canadian art history including George Théodore Berthon, Théophile Hamel, Paul Kane, Cornelius Krieghoff, Laura Muntz Lyall, Paul Peel and Charlotte Schreiber. The works depict young people from infants to teenagers engaged in many activities both indoors and outside. Through images of work and play the exhibition reveals aspects of settler Canadian society, particularly around social class and gender dynamics.

Gender and cultural expression are also examined in Zaghareet, a multi-channel interactive video installation by Sara Niroobakhsh that opens in May. Curated by Mahmoud Obaidi, an internationally renowned Iraqi-Canadian artist, Zaghareet was first presented in 2017 at South Korea’s Czong Institute for Contemporary Art (CICA). Also on view from May is a solo exhibition by another York-Region based artist: Nava Waxman. Waxman considers the performative aspect of painting and her exhibition explores the role of the object, the painting medium and the body itself in the process of mark making.