"Field Trip" to The Owens

This Thursday our Canadian Art class took place in the lobby of the Owens Art Gallery where we discussed each of the pieces that hung there. I would have to say that my absolute favourite work in the lobby that day was Christopher Pratt's “The Suburbs Standing West”, and I know I wasn't alone. The first time I walked into the Owen's after the painting was hung, I was immediately drawn to it. We looked at the work in class, projected on a screen a few months ago, but the experience of seeing it in person, up close was a lot different, and far more striking. I was actually so compelled by it that when my parent drove me back after the Easter weekend I made them come in and take a look at it (luckily the Owens was open—I didn't think it would be). They were pretty taken with it too. The painting looks like you could just walk through the frame and onto the winter suburban street. When I look at it, Suburbs Standing West transports me onto a lonely winter walk, which is beautiful an bleak at the same time. While I feel isolated though, I also feel like I finally have the space and time to think, and no one is watching me—I have no social context. This is just my experience of the painting.

Although I would have say that Suburbs Standing West is my favourite work in the lobby, I also really enjoyed seeing Joyce Weiland's O Canada print up close, especially after having read so much about her for my essay. I feel like nationalism is always in the form of this collective...mass; although nationalism wouldn't be a thing if it wasn't felt by individuals, it always seems to take the form of a collective attitude, and countries are so large that it becomes impersonal. But with O Canada, we see a nationalism that isn't only individual, but highly intimate. Weiland takes something as large and sweeping as the Canadian national anthem and turns it into an intimate moment of love and affection with the print of her own lips on paper. I can't think of any time I've seen nationalism in such a way before.