Dale Chihuly
The American glass sculptor’s enormous installations are at once tasteful and kitschy, at home in both fine art museums and Las Vegas hotels— like the Bellagio, where a collection of his multicoloured blossoms adorns the lobby ceiling. For the latter half of 2016, his works will turn the ROM’s Garfield Weston Exhibition Hall into an immersive psychedelic dreamscape of billowing flowers, tentacles and bulbs. $25. June 25 to Jan. 2, 2017. Royal Ontario Museum, 100 Queen’s Park, 416-586-8000.
Adam Lee Purple skin. Green skies. Orange lakes. Australian artist Adam Lee’s landscapes and portraits exist somewhere between realism and dreamscape, tapping the cool colour schemes of infrared images or an iPhone’s inverted-colour mode. His paintings—of still, owl-like beasts or a bear towering over a mountainous horizon—are both beautiful and ominous. Artwork $4,000–$12,000. June 3 to July 2. Angell Gallery, 1444 Dupont St., Unit 15, 416-530-0444.
Franz Erhard Walther The German artist’s neatly ordered fabric installations demand spectator participation: people become party to the art by wearing or holding up parts of the work. That’s the case in Call to Action, his first Canadian solo show, which invites visitors to interact with fabrics and foams on both the gallery floor and walls. June 25 to Sept. 5. The Power Plant, 231 Queens Quay W., 416-973-4949.
Karo Alexanian and Carol Bernier Blunt shapes and rusty colours dominate Alexanian’s charming contemporary portraits of characters like a nun, two men chatting or giant, whale-like creatures. Montreal’s Bernier eschews shape altogether, creating abstract landscapes that evoke stormy skies or northern lights.
Artwork $4,000–$13,000. June 16 to July 10. Thompson Landry Gallery, 32 Distillery Ln., 416-364-4955.
Vivian Maier Maier was a nanny first, photographer second. On her days off, she took thousands of pictures as she moved invisibly through Chicago, showing them to no one before filing them away. A few months after her death in 2009, her candid street shots and portraits—found in a storage locker—went viral, inspiring the Oscarnominated documentary Finding Vivian Maier. In this show, Stephen Bulger shares black-and-white shots from the collection. Artwork $3,000–$6,000. June 25 to Sept. 10. Stephen Bulger Gallery, 1026 Queen St. W., 416-504-0575.
Zachari Logan Logan’s surreal pastels and sculptures meld the human form with natural foliage. In his blue-on-white pencil drawings, a man’s beard doubles as a grapevine, or a head of hair morphs seamlessly into an octopus’s tentacles. Leaves, grass and animals make up the body of a slouching figure in one full-colour portrait. The intricate works are bursting with detail, begging to be closely examined. Artwork $3,000–$15,000. June 3 to July 2. Paul Petro Contemporary Art, 980 Queen St. W., 416-979-7874.