Spanning Thursday, August 6 through Saturday, August 8, this week marks the start of the 14th annual Photophobia, a festival of short-format contemporary media, film, video, and moving image hosted in partnership between the Art Gallery of Hamilton and Hamilton Artists Inc. For this week’s Film Favourites, we collected some of our favourite works from … Continued

From photographing patterns of dazzling sweets to shooting hockey pucks at a white canvas, multimedia artist Liss Platt often combines familiar objects with personal narrative, critical analysis, gender politics, and strategies of appropriation to challenge various dominant discourses and representations.[1] Last year, the AGH acquired its first artworks by the Hamilton-based artist: fourteen photographs from the … Continued

James Tissot’s oil on canvas Croquet is a popular and celebrated painting from the AGH permanent collection. Created in 1877-1878, the work entered the collection in 1965 and has since that time traveled the world as an important player in numerous exhibitions. Born in France and living in England during the 1870s, James Tissot is … Continued

Yesterday, we very excitedly announced our upcoming public reopening on Thursday, July 16. As a thank you to returning Gallery visitors, admission will be free for the remainder of July! Featured exhibitions Early Snow: Michael Snow 1947–1962 and The Artist’s Dream: Works of French Symbolism have been extended, open to the public until January 3 … Continued

For the past few months, we have been very excited to be part of FIELD TRIP, a new online platform delivering arts experiences from over 40 leading arts organizations across the country. From children’s programs to artist talks and workshops, the activities available on the platform are designed to advance the work of Canada’s arts … Continued

Just over a month ago, we published a long list of former AGH Film Series and AGH Film Festival films available for free streaming on Kanopy, accessible to anyone with a library card from most libraries in Southern Ontario. While the list provides a helpful reference point for finding some of our recommended films for … Continued

Let me begin by telling you that writing is not in my comfort zone.  As a preparator at the Art Gallery of Hamilton, I am most comfortable in the exhibition and storage spaces of the AGH. You know, behind the scenes. Normally you would find me on a ladder or pulling along a grey Rubbermaid tool cart loaded with my tools of choice: levels, hammers, tape measures, maybe a pencil if you are lucky, and always razor blades.  But these last few months have been somewhat different for all of us, so much … Continued

Sylvia Nickerson is a local comics artist, writer and illustrator who has received national acclaim for her stark and poignant work. This month, she began an artist residency at the AGH. Though we had planned to launch her multi-media installation, including graphic and sculptural work in our physical exhibition space in the David Braley and Nancy Gordon Sculpture Atrium, we are of course temporarily closed due to COVID-19.   Nickerson has creatively adapted … Continued

Last year, Ottawa-based artist Meryl McMaster made international waves with her newest body of work, As Immense as the Sky (2019), exhibiting it in Canada, the UK, France, and Australia. Three years in the making, the series of nineteen photographs captures McMaster’s travels to central and southern Saskatchewan, Ontario, and Newfoundland as she retraces the … Continued

The late Ojibwe artist Carl Beam was one of the foremost figures of contemporary art in Canada. Working in a variety of media, he examined the political and social concerns that have shaped Indigenous and Western relations throughout history. In the late 1970s, during the formative years of his career, Beam began making photo-based collage works that combine appropriated and personal imagery and text with gestural painting. Drawing on elements of Pop Art and Abstract Expressionism, Beam’s collage works boldly challenged prevailing definitions of Indigenous art and established him as a major contemporary … Continued