Burnaby Art Gallery

Gallery Tour & Studio Programs:

Students are invited on an instructor-led tour through the current exhibit, followed by a hands-on art studio workshop in the Fireside Room. Participants are challenged through cultivated learning, close observation and thoughtful discussions about the art featured in the gallery exhibit and in the studio. Key concepts and new artistic modes of creation come to life!

Art & Me

October 2, 2019 - June 4, 2020 | Preschool & Kindergarten  

This active tour is perfect for busy minds and bodies, introducing the world of art, artists and art galleries. In the gallery spaces, creative hands-on activities and visual games help young minds bring gallery exhibitions to life. Children learn about simple artistic concepts and are encouraged to express their ideas about the artwork verbally, physically and visually. In the studio, magic happens as kids experiment with making lift prints.

Saints, Sinners and Souvenirs: Italian Masterworks

October 2 - November 17, 2019 | Tour Bookings: Wednesdays and Thursdays

Curriculum tie-ins: Art Education | History |Western Civilization

The Burnaby Art Gallery is pleased to showcase a selection of Italian Masterworks from Vancouver-area public and private collections, dating from the Renaissance up to the late 18th century. This exhibition includes religious, historical, and mythological prints and drawings, examining their intended purposes and the context in which they were made.  Showcasing works exclusively from the Vancouver area, this exhibition will be the first of its kind in over 30 years.

In the gallery, students are introduced to Italian Masterworks, including the steps involved in classical drawing and how this translates to engravings and finally prints. In the art studio, the students will actualise a draw-to-print image inspired by works featured in the exhibition.

Echoes

November 29, 2019 – January 24, 2020 | Tour Bookings: Wednesdays and Thursdays

Curriculum Tie-ins: Art Education | Indigenous Studies | Geography |Science

As an echo reflects and repeats between entities, this exhibition considers communication between bodies which may be thought to be eclipsed. Here, the bodies of water and the physical remnants of stone, plastic, and land become the houses for the historical traces of change and continuity. Through practices such as ceremony and revisitations of the voyages of one’s ancestors, the artists included in this exhibition call upon knowledge  systems that do not rely on the written word, but rather assert a continuity and interconnectedness between body, land, and water. Through video works, digital prints, and sculpture, the artists demand we question our own contributions to a shared futurity.

Exploring these concepts of land, body, and water as vehicles for holding memory, students explore in the studio, artistic techniques to create works of art relating to concepts of reflection, repetition and interconnectedness as they pertain to the past and future.

Genevieve Robertson: Looking Through a Hole in the Earth

February 7 – March 20, 2020 |Tour Bookings: Wednesdays and Thursdays

Curriculum Tie-ins: Art Education | Earth Science | Ecology

Over the past four years, Genevieve Robertson has developed a studio practice that involves extensive physical and material exploration, engaging with the complexities of our relations to land and water in a time of large-scale industrial exploitation and climate precarity. Drawing with found materials, her work links biology, geology and environmental studies with contemporary drawing. Looking Through a Hole in the Earth presents three series of recent explorations: works on paper composed with bitumen and seawater; forest-derived charcoal and graphite; and silt, seaweed and limestone.  

In the gallery, students are introduced to Robertson’s landscape-inspired works, specifically her use of naturally occurring materials and artistic processes. Using printmaking methods and unconventional organic materials in the studio, students will produce works of art inspired by the artist’s approach to art-making.

Brad McMurray: Pedestrian

April 3 – May 1, 2020 |Tour Bookings: Wednesdays and Thursdays

Curriculum tie-ins:  Art Education | Social Studies | Geography

Presented as part of the Capture Photography Festival 2020, Brad McMurray: Pedestrian presents works focusing on the idiosyncratic structures and designs of the urban and peri-urban environment. Looking at Burnaby and beyond, this exhibition explores the experience of being on foot, drawing upon a long line of photographers working in the “New Topographics” tradition.

Using Brad McMurray’s photographs and the new topographics styles as inspiration, students are invited to create their own landscapes interrupted by industrial and mundane human- made subjects and objects.

Upper Gallery: Burnaby Artist Guild: 50th Anniversary

Celebrating 50 years and featuring 50 artworks in the upper gallery, the Burnaby Artist Guild is an organization supporting Burnaby artists with diverse backgrounds and practices.

Lower Gallery: Arts Alive 2020

May 8 - June 5, 2020 | Tour Bookings: Wednesdays and Thursdays

Curriculum tie-ins:  Art Education |Social Studies

The main gallery showcases Burnaby Art Gallery’s annual Arts Alive 2020. This 38th edition highlights a variety of engaging artwork by Burnaby secondary students and is an excellent way to introduce a wide variety of media, artistic styles, and visual principals to the classroom. In the studio, students engage in an art-making activity inspired by both survey exhibitions.