(séance)

Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery,

Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario

January 12 - March 15, 2007

For (séance) part of the Grand River Chronicles at the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery, Monica Tap was invited to respond to the life and legacy of Homer Watson, the celebrated early Canadian painter and local son. Twenty-three small canvases (no larger than 16 x 20”) isolate single frames from video shot along Homer Watson Boulevard, many of which include passing structures—industrial buildings, guard rails, poles—an ironic backdrop for a road named after a landscape painter and conservationist. The large canvases, also based on video stills, shift the focus: two draw on footage from a canoe drifting the Grand River, while two others come from a trip to Lily Dale, New York, where Tap consulted a medium in an attempt to reach Watson himself—an encounter that gave the exhibition its title.

The show was accompanied by a catalogue with an essay by art historian Matthew Brower.