The CAB is pleased to collaborate with the National Gallery of Canada on Cyclops and Other Tales by Marion Wagschal. This exhibition represents the CAB’s first partnership with a major institution, allowing us to support artists before we open our doors.
Both intimate and universal, Marion Wagschal’s paintings explore themes of memory, intergenerational trauma, the body, and the passage of time with exceptional sensitivity. She often depicts subjects that are otherwise considered unworthy of study, chief among them aging female bodies marked by life. By doing so, she grants them an agency that is at once affronting and endearing. Marion’s work is deeply feminist, belonging to a movement of resistance and compassion that foregrounds female experience while asserting the narrative power of the body.
Her work has profoundly shaped generations of artists through its singularity, its coherence, and vulnerability. Still, Marion’s work long remained outside the dominant trends of the art world. Our relationship with Marion has developed over the years, allowing us to identify meaningful ways of supporting her. By collaborating with the National Gallery of Canada, we are able to create well-deserved opportunities for her on a national scale.
Collaboration is one of CAB’s defining values. Anaïs Castro, Assistant Curator, Special Projects at the National Gallery of Canada, and Roxanne Arsenault, Director of Artistic Programming at the CAB, worked together to bring this exhibition to life. The relationship between the two curators and the 83-year-old artist deepened throughout this careful process, leading to a profound understanding of her work. The intimacy of the exhibition is a result of the trust built between the three women.
Above all, we had the privilege of spending many hours with Marion in her home studio. We got access to valuable archives: a treasure chest of anecdotes, tattered notebooks bursting with sketches, photographs of Marion taken by her peers, photocopies and other materials used for preparing works, and everything else that represents her life as an artist. These artefacts let us delve into Marion’s process in a way that would not have been possible without this trust. We’re happy to have a selection of these pieces presented in the exhibition Cyclops and Other Tales.
For more information, check out the press release.
To buy tickets for the exhibition, please visit the National Gallery’s webpage.
Art works
