We continue a long tradition of highlighting women in leadership by spotlighting senior artists. Join us for a lively and engaging conversation with artist icons Catherine Burgess, Alison Rossiter, and Marie Lannoo as we celebrate the opening of their upcoming exhibitions. The artists will discuss their individual practices, the context of working as women in the arts, and provide insights into the artwork showcased in our 3rd-floor galleries.
AGA Curator Lindsey Sharman facilitates this conversation.
About the artists:
Catherine Burgess
While she was enrolled in the Fine Arts program at the University of Alberta in the early 1970’s Catherine Burgess discovered her home in sculpture. From the beginning, her work was abstract, geometric and minimal. Yale summer school in 1974, Emma Lake Artists Workshop in 1977, the inaugural Triangle Workshop in New York in 1982 and the Hardingham Sculpture Workshop in England in 1988 all served to influence her process and reinforce her work’s direction.
Her pieces have gradually become conversations between disparate things – individual elements that have a sense of their own identity, form, materiality and significance. These conversations aren’t consciously intentional, but rather, emerge as a result of purely visual, sub-conscious choices. The work in this exhibition uses linear and planar elements that play with our perception of physicality and immateriality.
Alison Rossiter
Alison Rossiter took her first photography course in 1970 at the Banff Centre School of Fine Arts. The darkroom techniques she learned are the foundation for her current work with expired photographic papers. Further studies at the Rochester Institute of Technology formed a professional career working in photography laboratories, teaching in arts schools, and shooting art documentation. Simultaneously, she produced her own photography-based artwork. Curiosity about photograph conservation in 2003 led to a volunteer opportunity at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Afterward, inspired by observations of conservation concerns, she assembled a vast personal collection of unused 19th and 20th century photographic papers purchased on eBay. By simply processing prints from decades old packages, abstract marks appear as imagery and become rare documents of time.
Marie Lannoo
Lannoo is a Canadian artist based in Saskatoon. She studied at York University and the University of Saskatchewan as well as completing workshops in painting at the Banff School of Fine Arts and Emma Lake. Her work has been shown in exhibitions throughout Canada and internationally.
Lannoo is included in Abstract Painting in Canada by Roald Nasgaard. In 2023, independent curator/writer Wayne Baerwaldt published In Extremis, a book of recent paintings that accompanies a touring exhibition of this work.
In 2012, Lannoo established 330gProjects, an independent exhibition space in the historic building that is her studio in Saskatoon.