2020-2022

Acclaimed for her large-scale mapping paintings, Landon Mackenzie’s paintings have been widely exhibited in Canada and internationally, and her work has been collected by many museums including the National Gallery of Canada, Vancouver Art Gallery, Audain Art Museum, Art Gallery of Ontario, and Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Recent shows include Emily Carr and Landon Mackenzie; The Wood Chopper and the Monkey at the Vancouver Art Gallery (2014-15) and Landon Mackenzie: (Re)collects at the West Vancouver Art Gallery (2019). Mackenzie is Professor Emerita at Emily Carr University in Vancouver and is represented by Art 45 Montreal and Nicholas Metivier Gallery Toronto. She has received numerous awards, including the Queen Elizabeth II Golden and Diamond Jubilee Medals for her outstanding contribution to Canadian culture, as well as the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts (2017), and the Inaugural Ian Wallace Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Landon Mackenzie, Untitled, acrylic on paper, 2022

At the moment that all Canadian universities went into lockdown in March 2020, Landon Mackenzie was a visiting artist at Brock University. Our lives and plans were all abruptly interrupted at the stroke of midnight, and we woke up in the unknown. Two years later, in January 2022, students came back for face-to-face learning. In March of that year, Mackenzie was again in contact with Brock University and conducted two workshops (a verbal one and a visual one) at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts. Participants were invited to reflect on how the self reacts to the pandemic experience of lockdowns and restricted use of space outside one’s own four walls.

During the Visual Workshop, participants used sheets of paper cut into rounds and conceptualized this working space as a charged “surface of record” to contain fragments of time lost but insights gained. Selected artworks are presented here.

During the Verbal Workshop, participants described their experience of wearing a mask during the pandemic in 3–5-minute stories. They also created masks to accompany these stories. Twelve contributions are presented here.

This virtual exhibition draws on research supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).