Opening March 2025, this exhibition explores Michael Black's contemplations on "Garden Stories". Featuring Michael's riveting abstract artwork, and accompanied by Victoria Huntley's stunning glasswork.
Exhibit Schedule
Opens: March 1, 2025
Closes: April 2 at 3pm
Reception: March 1 | 2-4pm
Opening Festivities
Join the artists on Saturday, March 1 between 2-4pm to celebrate the opening of this exhibition:
- 2pm: enjoy a special Talk from Michael and Victoria as they explore their work and the theme of the show.
- 2:30-4pm: a drop-in wine and mingle time follows the artists’ Talk, with refreshments and complementary wine provided.
No tickets or registration required. All welcome!
About "Garden Stories"
"I have been thinking a lot about gardens. Over the past few summers, for example, the amount of warmth and rain where I live contributed to fine gardening conditions, and everything has grown in profusion. But conditions were localized - elsewhere, climate change brought about record-breaking heat, wildfires, flooding and generalized catastrophic variations in the season. So even as I observed the bursts of colour and form in our own little border, they felt somehow tenuous and unstable, like a fine but undeserved gift that was awkwardly received.
In general, gardens are redolent with symbolism in many traditions. As the nexus for creation stories or as a focus for earthly representations of a heavenly paradise, the rich associations connected with garden imagery reach across time and cultural specificity.
But there are ghosts in our gardens, too, in the way that gardens echo the history of humanity in the world. The cultivation of gardens often implies the desire to subdue and control, bringing together both nature and culture with all the perceived benefits of that union but also with all of its conjoined historical destructiveness as well. Gardens are loci of growth and decay, not only in terms of natural materials but also in terms of the ways in which we change our understanding of the relationship between the organic and the built environment over time.
Despite everything, there is hope in gardens. As another winter comes to an end, I have found myself longing for the first signs of the promise of spring. I hope that this exhibition embodies for others some of that hope and promise."
Michael Black | with Victoria Huntley
About the Artists
Michael Black
Michael graduated from the Ontario College of Art (now OCADU), in 1984 and holds a Doctorate in Education from the University of Toronto (2003). For 30 years, he worked in education. Michael has shown his work in Toronto, Charlottetown, Port Perry, Creemore, Thornhill, Port Hope, Cobourg, Ottawa, Peterborough, Thornbury, Meaford and Sutton West. His work is held in many collections.
Informed by a late Modern interpretation of abstraction, my current practice typically moves between painterly and post-painterly interpretations of cultural history and biomorphic forms. The age and patina of old walls, scraps of manuscripts, natural forms, etc. provide sources for the textures and compositions I use in my work. Whatever the source, I attempt to balance the pre-planned with the immediacy of the painting process itself, so that the images created are able to convey universal themes, as well as to allow for variations in interpretation.
Much of my current work is predicated on a tacit acknowledgment that in the current context, landscape/the organic does not exist separately from the artifacts and vestiges of cultural history. To garden, for instance, is most often to make decisions about what to cultivate and what to leave out within a structure - what ‘belongs’ and what does not. Added to this in our time are all the remnants and consequences of the built environment which surround us, and which affect us in everything from the climate crisis to pollutants to urban sprawl. At present, my work often comes out of a consideration of these inter-related factors that are part of contemporary life.
- Michael Black
Victoria Huntley
Since I was born and lived over half of my life in the Philippines, I was accustomed to enjoying green landscapes the whole year round.
Things changed when I immigrated to Canada. I was depressed the first time I saw the impatiens die from the frost. Canadian gardening was different: I had to learn the different planting seasons, and how different species of plants needed different amounts of sun and shade. The words annuals and perennials were new to me.
Gardening is one of my outdoor activities that I love. While sipping a cup of tea in the backyard, I watch the butterflies and bees pollinating the flowers - the inspiration for my art. Butterflies and bees are important contributors to keeping our natural environment healthy and clean.
Because I love spending time outdoors, I started creating art to enhance outdoor spaces. I use floral themes for my outdoor art to be compatible with the environment. Art in the garden transforms this space into an outdoor living room.
- Victoria Huntley