Confederation Centre Art Gallery opens

Six exhibitions available for viewing Tuesday to Sunday

Confederation Centre Art Gallery (CCAG) is welcoming patrons once again.

The gallery has six exhibitions to explore, including new work from Sandi Hartling. Also reopening their doors at the centre are The Showcase and The Story of Confederation – all operating with new protocols in place.

“We are very excited to welcome Islanders back to the CCAG,” says Kevin Rice, gallery director. “A lot of our patrons have been missing the gallery, and we are looking forward to seeing old friends again.”

This summer is a great opportunity for new visitors to experience the gallery’s programming, says Rice, as many people’s schedules have changed or students may find themselves home on Prince Edward Island for extended stays.

“So, we welcome everyone to come and explore the impressive range of Canadian art on offer.”

There is a limit of 15 people allowed in the gallery at a time, and patrons should have no difficulty moving through the large gallery spaces while maintaining social distancing. Recommended routes are illustrated on floor plans of each gallery and extra staff members are on hand to

welcome visitors and answer questions about summer exhibitions or new guidelines.

The gallery will be open Tuesday to Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. all summer. Admission is by donation.

Several exhibitions that opened just weeks before the gallery closed down due to the pandemic have been extended into this summer. These include two shows drawn from the permanent collection: Spheres, Skulls and Other Icons of the Interior and Setting the Table: Still-Life and its After Effects. Also on display is the touring exhibition, Victor Cicanksy: The Gardener’s Universe.

This career retrospective features selections from the Regina artist’s body of work, including surrealist pieces, early experimental Funk sculptures and bronze bonsai trees. Cicansky’s artwork reflects his knowledge of his Romanian-Canadian roots, his early exposure to gardening and a more contemporary interest in sustainability.

Also recently installed in the gallery’s glass entranceway is a series of glowing LED works from Hartling.

Entitled anything at all, the directness and immediacy of the three bright and colourful signs contrasts with the ambiguity of their text-based messages, in what the artist describes as an ongoing “inquiry regarding sense perception and its role in knowledge acquisition”.

This season’s exhibition schedule can be viewed in full on the website, as well as information on the Great Canadian Giving Challenge.

JIM DAY/THE GUARDIAN Daniel MacDougall of Charlottetown admires an acrylic on canvas piece by Patrick Lundeen called The Candy House at the art gallery in the Confederation Centre of the Arts. MacDougall, who is an expressionistic painter and a former gallery employee, has been visiting the gallery since he was a teenager. The gallery, which reopened last week, will be open to the public Tuesday to Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. New protocols and directional signage have been put in place to help ensure the safety of staff, patrons and artists.