Out of Site, Out of Mind: Reflections

The opening of the Out of Site, Out of Mind exhibition at St. Brigid's Centre for the Arts on June 21st was extremely interesting. The exhibition itself had great work; Laurence Butet-Roch and Magida El-Kassis, both SPAO grads of the 2009-2010 school year, had work up on the wall. However, the focus of the exhibition was a question of portraiture: while the site of the Canada Portrait Gallery is now non-existent because of certain political decisions, portraiture in Canada still exists, and will continue to exist and thrive. The exhibition itself proves this, with its exceptional showing of youth portraiture; with an excellent mix of painting and photography.

The discussion panel that occurred on the day of the vernissage featured Lily Koltun, the former director of the Portrait Gallery of Canada, and Michael Schreier, an artist and former director of the University of Ottawa visual arts program, as well as current teacher at SPAO. Penny Cousineau-Levine, current chair of visual arts at the University of Ottawa, moderated the discussion and added some points of her own. The panel discussion was very interesting; a discussion mainly on the state of portrait galleries and the future of Canadian portraiture as well as a kind of reassurance for future Canadian portrait artists; while portraiture may have been rejected by politicians, it is still very much at the forefront of the artistic world, and a portrait gallery has not been lost from the minds of Canadians.