John McNamara: A Survey of Paintings
Gallery Bergelli
February 10 – March 7
John McNamara makes surrealist photo-collages and then slowly covers with them with a layer of oil paint, mixing not only figuration and abstraction, but also raising questions about representation in the way that many photographers of constructed realities are also doing, writes DeWitt Cheng in catalog essay accompanying the exhibition.

Valérie Blass
Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal
February 2, 2012 – April 22, 2012
Valérie Blass is one of the most captivating artists to have emerged in Québec in the last ten years. She is a sculptor in every sense of the word: she is concerned with the object, with the way objects relate to one another and with their placement in space.

Ghada Amer
Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal
February 2, 2012 – April 22, 2012
Multidisciplinary artist Ghada Amer is known primarily for her pictorial work, which she augments with embroidery, temporarily blurring our reading of the works. Moving in closer to decipher the composition of her paintings, viewer turns into voyeur as the eye makes out, amidst the clumps and “drips” of thread, the female bodies displayed in situations of erotic pleasure.

Wangechi Mutu
Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal
February 2, 2012 – April 22, 2012
Wangechi Mutu’s work reflects her very original thinking on the state of the world and the relative hegemony of Western civilization. In her drawings and collages, as well as her sculptures, assemblages and videos, she conjures up the interplay of relationships between living organisms, humans and the power of nature. Highly regarded as a multidisciplinary artist, Mutu has exhibited regularly since the late 1990s.

VAN GOGH: UP CLOSE – The first major Canadian exhibition of works by the famous Dutch artist for more than 25 years

At the National Gallery of Canada
From May 25 to September 3, 2012
OTTAWA, Nov. 16, 2011 /CNW/ – The National Gallery of Canada (NGC)’s 2012 exceptional summer show, Van Gogh: Up Close, will be the first major Canadian exhibition of works by the famous Dutch artist for more than 25 years. In what promises to be a truly unique exhibition, visitors to the National Gallery will have the opportunity …