.jpg)
For the Honourable Patricia Bovey, women artists have been breaking glass ceilings in Canada for decades.
“I believe that women artists have always been fearless in how they put their message forward,” she says.
Now, Bovey, in association with MAWA (Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art) is presenting four-part lecture series every Thursday in the month of January entitled “Canadian Art History: Women Artists Breaking Glass Ceilings”. The former director of the Winnipeg Art Gallery and retired independent senator will guide the audience through the decades of artistic creation in Canada through the eyes of its female artists and their creations.
“There’s no way I will be able to show everybody who ought to be shown,” Bovey said by way of apology to Nolan Kehler on Morning Light.
Listen to Patricia Bovey's full conversation with Nolan Kehler, including their conversation about Justin Trudeau's resignation and what his government's legacy will be when it comes to the arts.
“It’s an idea series. The first lecture, I’m really talking about what does it mean to be a game changer. And if we go back, I’m starting in 1870... when Frances Anne Hopkins came west with her husband’s expedition for the Hudson’s Bay Company and did some amazing works at Kenora. When you think about what you have to wear, when you think about how they travel... that was a barrier. She did it.”
In addition to exploring other prominent female artists like the Beaver Hall Group and Emily Carr, Bovey will also explore other barriers that Canada’s women artists have faced over the years. This will include the historic lack of representation on the national stage with things like the Governor General’s Awards or on the international stage at events like the Venice Biennale. She will also turn her gaze to women artists and their advocacy work here in Winnipeg through organizations like the Winnipeg Women’s Art Association, which helped propel both the School of Art at the University of Manitoba and the Winnipeg Art Gallery into existence in 1912 and 1913, as well as local artists who have demonstrated fearless artmaking for the future such as Reva Stone.
As art trends have changed and women artists have advocated and championed their works, Bovey has also seen the conversation surrounding these artists evolve. “I do think we all now need to pay more attention as to how the audiences are taking these messages conveyed by artists within them. It’s not just enough to put the material out.”
One way in which Bovey herself has been working to develop the conversation is through a piece of legislation she drafted as a senator that would have created a Declaration on the Essential Role of Artists and Creative Expression in Canada. Though it ultimately failed to be passed into law, Bovey is confident that something like this can provide a framework to help merge the audience and the artist in a new social relationship where the respect and acknowledgement of both sides is more codified.
“An artist starts the discussion,” explains Bovey. “The audience, in seeing the work and reacting to it, carries that discussion on, and it’s the furtherance of the discussion that I think we need to do more of.”
The first lecture in the “Canadian Art History: Women Artists Breaking Glass Ceilings” will be hosted on January 9 at MAWA’s studios on Cumberland Avenue in the Exchange District. No registration is required and admission is free. More information can be found at MAWA’s website.