A new exhibition opens to the public at the Judith & Norman Alix Art Gallery on Friday.
Curator Sonya Blazek said it's called Facing North and focuses on the works of Jean Hay, a female artist who has pieces in the gallery's permanent collection.
"Jean Hay was born in 1919, she lived until 2012, and she became really fascinated with the Arctic," said Blazek. "Later on in her years, it was around her late 40s, that she actually started to pursue her artistic career by attending classes at Western University."
Blazek said Hay made her first trip to the high Arctic when she was 67-years-old.
"She did so on her own penny. She visited and she fell in love with it and that meant that she returned to the Arctic, through a variety of different means after that. I think it was up to like seven times that she traveled to the Arctic."
Blazek said Hay was invited to join artist programs and research camps.
"Scientists were actually inviting her up to the Arctic to make paintings, drawings, and field sketches. She spent time there taking photos and would return to her studio in London, Ontario and would paint with encaustic, which is like a hot wax, onto these fairly large canvases and produce these magnificent paintings of the Arctic."
Blazek admits she's been considering an exhibition for some time.
"I knew from my previous position at the Thames Art Gallery in Chatham that they had a few of these Arctic paintings and I loved them for years when I was working there. When I came to the Judith & Norman Alix Art Gallery, I saw that we had some of the Jean Hay Arctic paintings as well and so I approached the Thames and said, 'can we bring them together?'"
Blazek reached out to the artist's children, Elizabeth and Alex Hay, when putting together the exhibition.
"They've been sending me photos of her sketchbook and photos of notes that she took. So, we've actually included some of those in the exhibition, just to really explore Jean's work more because she's a little bit unknown, even though she was from the London-area and a lot of galleries have work by her in their permanent collection.
She also received some material from a scientist Hay stayed with at the research camps.
"Antoni Lewkowicz at the University of Ottawa has also provided me with some vintage photos of when Jean was actually at the research camps in the Arctic, and so we've also included those in the exhibition."
Free, time-ticketed, entries to the show can be booked at jnaag.ca.
The gallery is open Wednesday, Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Thursday from 11 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.
While COVID-19 safety protocols including masking, distancing, and hand sanitizing, are still being followed, proof of vaccination is not required at the site at this time.
