Artists in Conversation: Contemporary Landscape in Canadian Art

John Geoghegan is a Curator at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection. Prior to joining the McMichael in 2022, he worked as Senior Editor of the Inuit Art Quarterly. He has published on various topics of historical and contemporary Canadian art including: Gathie Falk, William Kurelek, Elisapee Ishulutaq, Mary Wrinch, and Kent Monkman. John holds an MA in Art History with a Curatorial Practice Diploma from York University.

Alexa Kumiko Hatanaka (b. 1988, Toronto) is a Japanese-Canadian, queer artist whose lived experience informs a materially rich and interdisciplinary practice. Working primarily with paper, she combines printmaking, ink drawing, natural dyeing, and sewing to create sculptures, installations, and wearable works.

Engaging with historical paper processes that both depend on and reflect environmental conditions, her work addresses climate change, mental health, and survival. Recurring motifs—landscape, fish, and water—speak to personal and collective experiences of resilience, connection, and joy.

Hatanaka’s practice includes over a decade of community-engaged projects in the Arctic, as well as collaborative performances rooted in kamiko, garments made from washi paper. She has exhibited internationally and her work is held in major collections including the British Museum, National Gallery Singapore, and the National Gallery of Canada. She is participating in the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia.

Michelle Sound is a Cree and Métis artist and mother, and a member of Wapsewsipi Swan River First Nation in Treaty 8 Territory. She is a multidisciplinary artist working across photography, textiles, painting, and Indigenous material practices.

Her work explores identity through personal narratives rooted in family, place, and history, with a focus on maternal labour, cultural knowledge, and inheritance. Blending traditional and contemporary materials, Sound creates works that reflect both lived experience and intergenerational connection.

She holds a BFA from Simon Fraser University and an MA from Emily Carr University of Art + Design. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is held in collections including the National Gallery of Canada and the McMichael.

Sky Glabush (b. 1970, Alert Bay, BC) explores painting as a means of observation and self-discovery. His works—spanning painting and works on paper—invite viewers into a dialogue between interior experience and the external world.

Through a focus on light, colour, composition, and texture, Glabush’s work foregrounds the material language of painting itself, creating an experience that mirrors the act of looking.

He received his BFA from the University of Saskatchewan and his MA from the University of Alberta. His work has been the subject of recent solo exhibitions in Los Angeles, New York, and London, and is held in the collection of the National Gallery of Canada and other major institutions.