McMichael Canadian Art Collection Presents Margaux Williamson: Interiors
Margaux Williamson, Fire, 2021, oil on canvas, 177.8 x 213.4 cm, Collection of Christine and Andrew W. Dunn
October 28, 2021, KLEINBURG, ON – The McMichael Canadian Art Collection is proud to announce the opening of the new exhibition Margaux Williamson: Interiors on November 6, 2021. This exhibition, featuring the work of Toronto painter, filmmaker, and writer Margaux Williamson (b.1976), presents more than 40 paintings of interior spaces created over the last 15 years. While women artists of the early twentieth century often depicted interiors as places of privacy and domestic quietude, Williamson’s artworks reveal zones of creativity, subjectivity, and anarchic experimentation. At a time when domestic space has become such a central context for daily life, Williamson’s explorations of places that are simultaneously familiar and foreign are particularly poignant. In her vision, space itself appears to misbehave, with spatial ambiguity and dramatic foreshortening often used to suggest places observed in elapsing time, or recalled in memory.
Williamson was born in the city of Pittsburgh, in the United States, before relocating to Toronto. She studied at Queen’s University, and spent a formative semester at the Glasgow School of Art in 1998. Her first book, I Could See Everything, was published in 2014. Williamson has served as the artist in residence at the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Klondike Institute for Arts & Culture, and at MacDowell in New Hampshire.
“We are delighted to present the work of Margaux Williamson, one of Canada’s most accomplished painters,” says McMichael Chief Curator Sarah Milroy. “Her commitment to painting the ‘great indoors’ — rendering the often hibernatory nature of our lives in a northern culture – coupled with her uncanny ability to convey interior states of consciousness, grant her a distinctive place within the canon of Canadian art, linking her work to painting traditions beyond our borders.“
Margaux Williamson: Interiors is guest curated by Jessica Bradley, one of Canada’s most respected curatorial voices. Bradley returns to the McMichael following her exhibition Marie-Claire Blais: Veils, which she curated in 2019. Interiors is made possible with the generous support of Presenting Sponsor Hatch, and continues the McMichael’s ongoing commitment to supporting the careers of living Canadian artists.
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue with contributions from Jessica Bradley, Canadian author Sheila Heti, and American writer and poet Ben Lerner. Featuring an introductory essay by Sarah Milroy, Interiors features 38 full-colour plates, as well as photo-documentation of Williamson’s studio by Toronto photographer Craig Boyko. The catalogue will be available through the McMichael’s Gallery Shop and online eShop.
Media wishing to request high-resolution images of the works or seeking interviews with Margaux Williamson; guest curator, Jessica Bradley; or Chief Curator, Sarah Milroy, are asked to contact Sam Cheung at scheung@mcmichael.com or 905.893.1121 ext. 2210.
About the McMichael Canadian Art Collection
The McMichael Canadian Art Collection is an agency of the Government of Ontario and acknowledges the support of the Ministry of Heritage, Sport, Tourism and Culture Industries, and the McMichael Canadian Art Foundation. It is the only major museum in the country devoted exclusively to Canadian art. In addition to touring exhibitions, the McMichael houses a permanent collection of more than 6,500 works by historic and contemporary Canadian artists, including Tom Thomson, the Group of Seven and their contemporaries, Indigenous artists and artists from the many diasporic communities. The Gallery is located on 100 acres of forested landscape and hiking trails at 10365 Islington Avenue, Kleinburg, north of Major Mackenzie Drive in the City of Vaughan. For more information, please visit mcmichael.com.
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Media Contacts
Sam Cheung
Media Relations and Communications Coordinator
McMichael Canadian Art Collection
905.893.1121 ext. 2210
scheung@mcmichael.com
Shalini Saini
Acting Director, Marketing & Communications
McMichael Canadian Art Collection
905-893-1121 x2294
ssaini@mcmichael.com