Montageries is not a term you will find in a dictionary. Rather, it is a combination of ‘montage’ and ‘memories’ with the meanings of the two packed up into one word. One online dictionary describes a montage as being “any combination of disparate elements that forms or is felt to form a unified whole, single image, etc.” And, according to the same dictionary source, the word memories is a plural form of ‘memory’ – recalling impressions and facts, embodying remembrance, and recollections of times past.

 

This exhibition features a concise selection of nineteen artworks from over 8,000 objects of visual art held in the extensive permanent collection of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts (AFA). Compositionally, each of the artworks selected were created by uniting many varied components – montages of sorts – metaphorically highlighting that every artwork stands as a small part of a much larger whole (the AFA collection). Multi-layered and complex, the artworks included in Montageries are flashes of memory and times past that we can now take a moment to reflect on and remember as we commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts’ permanent collection in the year of 2022.

 

Featuring work by Kay Angliss, Carol Breen, Chris Cran, Mark Dicey, Robert Dmytruk, John (K) Esler, Les Graff, John Hall, Alex Janvier, Brenda Jones-Smith, George Littlechild, Harry Kiyooka, Luke Lindoe, Janet Mitchell, Marion Nicoll, Katie Ohe, John Snow, Kenneth Sturdy,

and Wendy Toogood.