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Hello from Hi Art, the CBC Arts weekly newsletter!
Every Sunday, we feature Canadian art that’s grabbed our attention. This is a roundup of recent highlights.
Installation view of The Sky Still Carries the Stories by Stina Baudin. (Artwork: Stina Baudin; Photo: Alex Chabot)
You’re looking at the roof of one of the buildings at Adélard, a contemporary arts centre in Frelighsburg, Que., where artist Stina Baudin has unveiled this outdoor installation. The piece (The Sky Still Carries the Stories) commemorates the Eastern Townships’ early Black community, and it features an original soundscape by Markus Floats. Should you make the trip (it’s up through Nov. 1, FYI), there’s an observation deck on the site so visitors can view Stina’s glimmering, quilt-like work. She’s stitched more than 2,000 mirrors onto the piece as a way of representing the Black folks who settled in the area and also the constellations that led them north via the Underground Railroad. As she writes on Instagram: “Metaphorically, mirrors can also reflect our history / societies back to us…something to ponder.”
Rubicon II: portal detail by Aimée Henny Brown. (Aimée Henny Brown)
Aimée Henny Brown was getting ready to open a solo show of collage works (Thresholds) in Vancouver when we featured this piece in the newsletter. Try to imagine you’re standing in front of this image, but it’s as tall as a professional basketball player. Aimée will be presenting several of her new works as banners, so the sense that you’re encountering a mysterious doorway between worlds (a threshold, if you will) should hit extra hard. The exhibition runs to July 15 at Propellor Studio.
From Tourist by Dane Matthews. (Dane Matthews)
Attack of the 50-foot artist? Dane Matthews is actually just six feet tall, but in her book Tourist, she’s a kaiju on a girls’ trip, rampaging around the globe. The Montreal artist will be at the Toronto Outdoor Art Fair in July. Over email, Dane told me she’ll have Tourist at her booth, plus a selection of larger-scale works that combine multiple media (photo transfer, pencil crayon, marker) with a dose of humour.
Artist Cheyenne Rain LeGrande poses with her sculpture Misi‑mîkisak at William Hawrelak Park in Edmonton. (Artwork: Cheyenne Rain LeGrande; Photo: Jenna Turner/Edmonton Arts Council)
On May 30, Cheyenne Rain LeGrande unveiled this public artwork, Misi‑mîkisak, at the grand reopening of Edmonton’s William Hawrelak Park. The sculpture is shaped like a giant beaded earring, and its pastel rainbow palette is a celebration of two-spirit people and Indigiqueer identities. The Edmonton Arts Council has a Q&A with Cheyenne where she talks about the piece. With Misi‑mîkisak, she’s taken “a tiny little seed bead” and made it huge — a nod to the limitless potential of imagination and the ways Indigenous futurism shapes her creative approach. Oh! One more note for you. Cheyenne’s planning to hide some earrings of a more wearable scale around Hawrelak Park. As of writing, she hasn’t shared further info on where and when to go hunting, so follow her Instagram for updates.
Unfinished Arch by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer. (Rafael Lozano-Hemmer; Photo: Waterfront Toronto)
Toronto has some fresh public art as well. You’re looking at Unfinished Arch by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (previously seen here). Located at Sherbourne Common, it’s a sculpture that’s technically never complete until you interact with it. Yes, you! (Provided you’re in the area, of course.) When visitors reach out and touch the end of the artwork, the whole thing lights up.
Installation view of Chronomancer by Veronika Pausova. (Artwork: Veronika Pausova; Photo: William Sabourin/Bradley Ertaskiran)
There’s something strange and a teensy bit destabilizing about Veronika Pausova’s paintings of ordinary things (like the passing of time). I can’t get enough of them myself. Her latest body of work is at Bradley Ertaskiran in Montreal through July 4.
Wade for the Same Moon by Sichen Grace Chen. (Sichen Grace Chen)
Thinking of the passage of time, I like how Vancouver’s Sichen Grace Chen describes this painting of hers on Instagram. She told me more about it over email, explaining how she was inspired by a recent walk in the park. “I was drawn to the liminal quality of June, a month between spring and summer, neither fully warm nor dry,” she wrote. “Like the approaching summer solstice, the work explores how seasonal rhythms can reconnect us to the land, water and community.”
Forest Mixer by Daily tous les jours. (Artwork: Daily tous les jours; Photo: Ramble Films)
When I randomly saw this photo on Instagram I immediately wanted to know the location. It was posted by Daily tous les jours, a design studio from Montreal, and the caption ID’d the site as B.C.’s Hornby Island. That is indeed where you’ll find this interactive art installation (Forest Mixer), but the exact spot is being kept under wraps. Sorry, folks. The studio tells me a private client commissioned them to create this “voice composting system,” and it’s not open to the public. Still, it’s fun to imagine stumbling across it on a hike. There are audio receptors along the length of the sculpture. And the vibration of voices and all the sounds of the forest are meant to blend and run down the tube toward platforms on the ground. There, visitors can lounge and contemplate the music of nature.
The lucky ones with their shadows by Monica Tap. (Monica Tap)
Want to see this painting by Monica Tap close up? You can find it at the Art Gallery of Guelph, where it’s appearing in the group exhibition Windfall Light. Monica originally unveiled the piece at Toronto’s MKG127 gallery in October 2024. That same month, bulldozers flattened the mature forests surrounding Ontario Place, an attraction on the city’s waterfront. Monica had spent months there painting, and her exhibition at MKG127, Everything is going to have to be put back, was a response to the planned demolition. The show at the AGG explores themes of time and transformation — “where abundance and loss are held in delicate balance.”
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