A Long time AGO...

I went to the Art Gallery of Ontario today. Wow!

An absolutely AMAZING set of pictures from the Group of Seven especially a painting by Frederick Varley called Liberation which was a six foot tall painting of the ressurected Christ entering the upper room where the disciples were hiding. It was a riot of colour and the expression on Christ's face was not smiling nor exactly sombre so it engaged the eye. The colours follow the figure into the room and creep through the darkness of the doorway. It was incredible. Annoyingly I couldn't find a picture of it in the shop or online but I'm working on it.
The gallery also had a special focus on one picture by Jackson with audio commentary that helped you meditate on the contents of the picture. Definitely something I'll be using at Xp with the young people. I just need to find a suitable picture, mayb an icon or a picture of the last supper. Sorry, sorry I am NOT thinking about work. Really.

I also got a bit of a surprise because there was some modern art that I REALLY loved by Kazuo Nakamura using number theory and especial Pascal's triangle. Fortunately there was also some really silly modern art to reassure me that I haven't changed taste entirely! What I liked about Nakamura's work was that there was clearly somethng DEEP behind it. I genuinely believe that is often lacking in other modern art

The highlight I was actually looking forward to was the Henry More gallery nd that was superb. Some small versions of his sculptures and plaster moulds that were used to cast the final bronze works tat are elsewhere. The gallery had also put out paper and pencils, challenging visitors to have a go at sketching. Of course I couldn't resist that! I will however be sticking with watercolours and acrylics I think. Sketching things like that is NOT easy!

There was also a strange exhibition by Mark Lombardi of what were essentially mind maps of the organisational and relational networks behind things like the BCCI scandal. These were fascinating... but are they art? I don't know.

Later Kerry and I checked out a PUB - yes they claim to have pubs here. Kerry admitted they're not really pubs but there was beer so I din't complain!

Tomorrow I think I'm going to check out the cathedral and maybe do a little more shopping. Then in the evening we're going to see a film, perhaps HERO which is supposed to be visually STUNNING or Shark Tale which has had some recommendations in the old blogosphere.